Why do we stop doing things? Sometimes it’s simply to have more space in our lives, a worthy goal in itself. But sometimes we want to make space so we can start something that is important to us.
At the beginning of the year I started writing three pages a day, every working day. I’ve kept it up on the road, scrawling three pages on a lined pad, sometimes describing the inside of an airplane: anything to keep writing. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl, and I’ve been writing papers, articles, and my newsletter for over ten years now. But I’ve never before written this consistently for months at a time.
I was inspired by Julia Cameron’s fascinating memoir, Floor Sample, where she described her experience of saying to God, “You provide the quality, I’ll provide the quantity,” and committed to producing at least three pages of work every day. It takes about 20 minutes or less for me to write those pages. Some days I write much more, but I do at least that. And it hasn’t been that hard, much to my surprise.
The result: a new sense of myself as a writer, many pages of writing (some usable and some not), a book draft and proposal, and I’m on the verge of a book contract. And of course, this blog.
What do you want to start doing?