Time and Pancakes

I'm not going to begin this post with..."This morning I was making pancakes" or something that sounds sort of functionally like the beginning of a post. I just have to quickly pass along something else about time. 

Speeding along, whizzing between projects, trying to sneak in one little thing about slow writing. Yes I realize how ridiculous that is. (I am reading, finally, Carl Honore's 2004 In Praise of Slowness, which is really sort of history of speed and expansive catalogue of slow movements). 

Anyway - (I really did make 2-ingredient pancakes this morning and they came out nothing at all like the pix, but tasted great) - here is point 6 from Rebecca Solnit's "How To Be a Writer" published September 13 on Literary Hub.
6) Time. It takes time. This means that you need to find that time. Don’t be too social. Live below your means and keep the means modest (people with trust funds and other cushions: I’m not talking to you, though money makes many, many things easy, and often, vocation and passion harder). You probably have to do something else for a living at the outset or all along, but don’t develop expensive habits or consuming hobbies. I knew a waitress once who thought fate was keeping her from her painting but taste was: if she’d given up always being the person who turned going out for a burrito into ordering the expensive wine at the bistro she would’ve had one more free day a week for art.
Also I totally love that she has "When all else fails, put on the gospel song “Steal My Joy” and even includes the link.

My go-to song is "I've Got a Feeling" by Albertina Walker. Go listen! And take your time today if you can.

Never, never, never come out like any picture ever

                   

Comments

  1. Ah yes!! I chose a much shorter quote from Solnit's list on Lit Hub last week--the whole thing is fantastic! I copied a few into my notebook. "It's all really up to you, but you already knew that and knew everything else you need to know somewhere underneath the noise and the bustle and the anxiety and the outside instructions." I've been breathing into this last one, tapping into the subconscious, and just doing the work. I've put down my books about writing (for now) and carry around Lucia Berlin's short stories along with my notebooks. And now I'm going to go listen to "I've Got a Feeling." :)

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  2. That is so exciting Sarah to hear you are breathing into this last one...putting down writing books...trusting your instincts...so good to hear this. Going inside. It used to be so much easier! Writing *was* the distraction all through college and now everything else pulls and pulls...

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  3. Love love loved Solnit's list, too!!

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