At the beginning of the month, I shared my intention to set a small writing goal -- one that I hoped I could engage in consistently.
Writing for 10 minutes each day.
I could write at any time or any place. I could type on my computer, write in a notebook, or jot things down on a random piece of paper (although I'm trying to avoid doing that last one). The only rule was that I had to spend the entire time on new words that were creative rather than contemplative, which meant no editing, revising or journaling. I could still do those things, of course, but they wouldn't count toward my ten minutes.
So far this month, I've written blog posts and scenes for a novel that refuses to take shape (but whose characters I like quite a lot). And, on those days when I was drawing a blank, prompts from websites and books came in very handy.
And I have written every single day.
I know the goal seems like a small one, something I acknowledged at the outset. But it's small for one reason: consistency. No matter how busy the day, it's relatively easy to find ten minutes to jot down my thoughts and try to turn them into something.
When we set goals, it's easy to make them lofty and impressive, but those kinds of goals are hard to stick to. It's humbling to make them bite-sized, but if we're creating a new habit (or re-starting one that has fallen by the wayside), bite-sized is sometimes what's called for.
As I close in on the end of the month, I need to decide what I want to do moving forward. Although it's tempting to nudge my goal a bit, perhaps moving from ten minutes to fifteen, I don't think the timing is right. May is one of the busiest months of the semester, and I fear that raising the bar is likely to backfire.
So I'll stick to ten minutes, mostly because it's working, but also because I've discovered a few side benefits I wasn't expecting.
Creativity: Even my tiny ten has led to a trickle of creativity outside my writing time. Knowing that I need to write about something each day has my brain coming up with options in odd moments so that when I sit down, I have something to write about.
Efficiency: During those ten minutes, I'm much more focused, precisely because ten minutes is not a lot of time. I set the timer and then I'm off and I must not only get in the zone but stay there -- there's no time for foot dragging or procrastinating.
Productivity: On quite a few days, my sessions have gone longer than ten minutes. Once I got started, I wanted to finish that day's work so that none of the ideas or inspiration evaporated overnight.
Enthusiasm: This might be the best one of all. I'm rediscovering the joy that comes with this avocation. I've given myself permission to just write, with no real expectations. If I create a blog post, great. If I rough out an article or a scene, also great. If I simply put words on the page that don't end up being anything that's also -- you guessed it -- great.
Any activity can hit a rough patch, and this is especially true for things we've done for a long time. Finding our way back in can be difficult, but that's often true only because we overcomplicate things.
Sometimes, all it takes is ten minutes.