Discipline

I wasn’t always as disciplined about my writing as I am now.

Here’s what Annie Dillard says about discipline and schedules in The Writing Life:

‘How we spend our day is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.’

When I first read this it changed my life. It was so plain. I could make as many excuses as I liked to avoid sitting down and facing the work, but in the end my life is how I spend my time. If I spend my hours doing housework or surfing the Internet, then that is who I am. I am not a writer, I am a housecleaner, or an Internet surfer. All the excuses in the world won’t change that.

This frightened me into being serious about my work and respecting my time. And I liked the mindfulness of it too. How I spend my time matters. What I do is what I am, who I am.

These days I am a writer

The Writing Life

It was a cold day here today. This afternoon Farmdoc and I warmed up by splitting the firewood he cut yesterday. While we did it I thought, as I often do, of what Annie Dillard wrote in her book, The Writing Life:

‘You aim…at the chopping block, not at the wood…You cannot do the job cleanly unless you treat the wood as the transparent means to an end, by aiming past it.’

She has many many wonderful things to say about writing, but in my opinion that statement is amongst the most helpful.