Writing Routine CPR

My new job is in the health care industry, and it is also dealing with patient care. Because of this, I spent my morning in a CPR class. CPR has a very specific order (I know, I was just tested on it). First, you assess the scene to make sure the patient is in a safe place (ie, not in the center of the road or lying in shattered glass), then you see if they are responsive. After that, check for a pulse, if no pulse, remove clothing from the chest and start CPR.

This seems like a lot of steps, and I haven't even covered the compressions/breathing themselves.

My writing schedule used to be this strict. Pre-college/work I would write from 9 to 11:30 every night, then go to bed. It didn't matter if it was a Sunday, Tuesday, or Friday. It didn't matter if it was winter or spring. In fact, at that time, if I had suddenly been transported to Mars, that wouldn't have mattered either. 9 to 11:30 was my writing time.

Then I went to college, where time was never truly applicable. After withdrawing, I resumed my writing routine. But then I got an infant rabbit who needed a lot of attention and training, and a long bedtime transition from her exercise pen back to her cage. After that came my health care job. I now wake up between 5:30 and 6:30am on weekdays, depending on my schedule. The rabbit is nearly 5 months old and thinks it's okay to chew on the wires for my computer.

My writing routine is no longer working. I can't stay up that late and hope to wake up that early. So, instead, I've been writing a lot on my lunch break and days off. It's not an everyday assurance like my old routine, but it's what I have to do.

If you've found yourself inhibited by a new work, child, or pet routine, go ahead and break your previous writing schedule. Take a few weeks to adjust and reassess when you can squeeze in some writing. Perhaps it's fifteen minutes after work you can have to yourself. Or the few minutes your infant will sleep.

Adopting this flexibility to change will keep you from stalling out your writing. It's better to write for fifteen minutes every day then to not write for a month.

As parting, here's a few stories of fellow writers:

Poet Wallace Stevens wrote his famous poems on commute walks to and from his job.

 

Ernest Hemingway would write at the crack of dawn...while standing...and drinking.

 

Victor Hugo had his valet hide all of his clothing so he was forced to write and not leave the house.

 

Dan Brown writes in 60 minute stints (measured by an hourglass) and then exercises.

Dedication

In class today, some of my fellow students presented a slideshow on Great Thinkers. They covered musicians, writers, and philosophers. The task was to get the rest of us thinking about how we classify and identify great thinkers. Ideas bounced around rather lethargically. It's snowing again here, and everyone is ready for winter to end. (In fact, I'm wearing floral pants in protest of the weather.)

But eventually, and with some prodding from our professor, we came upon what I feel is the greatest attribute of all the people they mentioned: Dedication.

Never mind how much money someone has, the amount of free time they can spend stroking their beard and smoking their pipe, or whether they had a traumatic childhood; the real common denominator amongst all great thinkers is dedication to their craft.

Especially now, we all have access to almost any type of information we want. A quick internet search will reveal mountains of information out there. Also, almost every town has a library within 20 miles of it. I know, I know, libraries. The travel time, the cost of gas, the walking up stairs and across floors - it's harder than Google. But the great thing about libraries is the information in the published books and articles is already fact checked and edited for you to rely on.

Take Bach, Aristotle, or (my favorite) Virginia Woolf - all were dedicated.

Whether you're dedicated to writing, music, philosophy, technology, or any other field, it is dedication to your particular task that will prove to be beneficial in the long run. Do some internet searching, read blogs and ebooks and how-tos, or go to the library and find your section. While you are there, know that, yes, dedication to one thing will mean that something else will have to suffer. Say you spend all your time perfecting your novel. In essence, your gardening or cooking will suffer in turn. This is the way of the world. With something good - a change for the better - comes a sacrifice. However, I want to point your attention to a quote I heard the other day. It goes something like,

"Good is the enemy of Great."

It is a modern spin on an old Voltaire quote from the 1700s. Basically, it is saying that doing something so that it is "good" is getting in the way of pursuing it until it is "great." And you'll only come to be a Great Thinker through dedication. The internet has negated our excuse to lack of resources. We can no longer stop when it's good enough. We must strive for greatness. Otherwise, we'll go nowhere.

I leave you to ponder.