People often ask how I'm able to fit time for quilting into my busy schedule. Sometimes, I'll devote a whole Saturday afternoon to sewing or sneak away for a retreat with friends. But I've discovered that I can actually get a lot of stitching done in as little as fifteen minutes. Over time, those quarter hours can really add up!
Marie Bostwick
For a long time I didn’t write because I didn’t have huge blocks of time to write. I had a passel of children, a lot of running around to do, and so much to clean. The most I could spare was maybe fifteen minutes. But I’d hardly get into the writing before I’d have to quit, I rationalized, and that would only be frustrating. So, for a long time, I didn’t do anything at all. Someday, I decided, I’d have time.
«Queue the announcer voice: Someday did not come.»
Then one day, I don’t know how, but I stumbled onto the book Pen On Fire by Barbara DeMarco Barrett. (Back then I loved to read books about writing. I just didn’t do anything with what I learned.) The premise of that book is, as Marie Bostwick said above, those quarter hours can really add up. I took the advice to heart and told myself— just try it. Can’t hurt. It’s better than what you’re doing now. Which was, nothing.
You learn to write by writing. William Zinsser
And that was how I (finally) started writing. By removing the main excuse I had about not having time. I had 15 minutes. Sometimes I had 30. And the more I wrote, the more I found time to write, the more I wanted to write. And the less afraid of it I was. I think we can wait till this happens or that happens and, day by day, we end up waiting forever. Better to just do a little something than nothing at all. Better to let those quarter hours build up than to spend zero minutes on the thing we say we want to do.
So, here’s my advice: get a copy of Pen on Fire. Read it. Then find your 15 minutes, even if it’s just a couple of times a week. And let me know what happens next.
Needed exactly this pep talk today. Ordering pen on fire now. thank YOU!
Love this! So true... the power of 15 minutes is substantial!