INSPIRATIONS IN 15 MINUTE SPURTS

It is so easy to be distracted from your purpose!  I’m browsing through my Facebook page this morning, looking for any excuse not to write.  It is not a conscious decision, but I feel it gnawing at me – delay, delay!  Something is screaming at me inside.

Not all procrastination is wasteful.  I did come across an inspiring post on Canada Writes.  It is about a woman, Mireille Silcoff who has a chronic disease and was confined to a period of bed rest.  She wrote her first book of fiction in bed in 15 minute spurts. It’s reminder to me that Rome was not built in a day, nor the Taj Mahal, or the pyramids of Egypt. Patience, woman, patience, I tell myself.

image from newyorktimes.com

I was reading my emails on my iPhone in bed this morning.  A terrible habit, I know.  But I love warm luxury of those short or not so short moments before the day starts.  A friend had sent a story of a woman who walked 10,000 miles in three years.  The story of Sarah Marquis’s journey and a bit on Robert Falcott Scott’s expedition to the South Pole grabbed my attention.  It is something I would love am trying to do.  I don’t mean doing a trek or expedition.  I mean I am on the arduous task of completing a goal – writing a book.

Perhaps I shouldn’t use words like ‘arduous’.  It might discourage me.  Here’s the definition of arduous according to Webster’s online dictionary:

Full Definition of ARDUOUS

1

a :  hard to accomplish or achieve :  difficult <years ofarduous training>

b :  marked by great labor or effort :  strenuous <a life ofarduous toil — A. C. Cole>

2

:  hard to climb :  steep <an arduous path>

— ar·du·ous·ly adverb

— ar·du·ous·ness noun

Scary stuff, Huh?  Years of arduous training, marked by great labor or effort!  I have no doubt that Sarah Marquis and Robert Scott worked and trained hard.  There’s results to show for their efforts.  Am I cut of the same mettle?

I’ve been easily scared off, influenced and distracted off a chosen road many a times.  What would be different this time?  Already the thoughts are playing their song in my head.  “Even if I don’t write my book/novel/memoir, at least I AM writing.”  Already I’m making an escape plan, making compromises.  I have to stop.

image from google.ca

image from en.wikipedia.org

I have to stop the negative self talk and start the I can, I can rant.  I can breathe and let go of the can’ts.  Breathe and think of the sphynxes and pyramids built in ancient times.  Picture the slow, but steady progress of the men moving one stone after another.  The magnificence of their work still stands today.

Can I put aside my impatience and discomfort for just 15 minutes at a time? I can build with one word after another on the page for 15 minutes at a time.  Can you see my sphynx yet?  Will it last till the end of time?  15 minutes is good enough – for now.  It is a start.