I was chatting via email with a family friend of mine who reads my writing from time to time. I lamented the non-publication of this book I’m “trying” to work on. At the end of her reply, she wrote:
“Don’t bother writing me back; just get to writing on your book!”
Her words hit me like a sledgehammer. She was right.
Everything I’m doing that’s not writing – that’s not getting my book published, that’s not building up a writing set — whether it’s sending an email, watching TV, working late, even writing on this blog, at times — is effectively taking time away from the writing that I want to do.
As it stands, I’m all talk when it comes to a book. I haven’t done it yet. And until then, everything I choose to do is effectively choosing that over something that I keep saying (longing,wanting) to do.
My coach told me to stop thinking about it and just do it.
“What’s the easiest way to get started writing, and nothing else?”
What are you not doing?
What are you doing in place of what you should be doing? What is your life purpose, your question, your raison d’être, your meaning? And if you don’t know that, are you spending time figuring it out?
Because if we’re not doing that — if we’re twittering and emailing and filling up space with things, things that don’t matter so much in the long run, things that just expand to fill the time you give them — then what’s the point?
What’s the cumulative effect of what we are doing?
And what, by doing what we’re doing right now – are you not doing?