Breakthrough In Writing - Remove the Limitations

I haven't written a lot in the last two years. And yet I'm writing all the time. I've been obsessing about it, wanting to do it, attempting to do it. Yet not making the time. Or relating to the process as if the time I have was enough. I've been like a rat on a wheel tiring myself out but getting nowhere fast.

But I took this 7.5 month class on leadership, and one of the things I got out it was being able to transform my relationship to my writing.

If you told me I could get done in 3 days what has always taken me about 5 months to do...I would have looked at you like this?! Are you crazy? I'm concerned that you're not in living in reality.

The thing is, we always relate to things from how they have occurred for us in the past. And in the past, it has taken me at least 3-6 months to write each chapter of my books, and that's with me being diligent. You see I knew it took at least 8 hours to rewrite each poem. So I would schedule a day, block out the entire day to write it.

The problem was, an audition, a doctors appointment, coffee with a friend, something would always come up in the middle of that time. Then instead of starting the poem, I would have to reschedule it for another whole day. And it kept getting pushed further and further out. Which is why it's been 6 years since my last book was published.

But by transforming the way I relate to my writing process. I had a huge breakthrough. I was grinning from ear to ear when I discovered I could just set a time limit, and not allow myself to work on any poem longer than two hours. (there were a couple exceptions to the 2 hour rewrite rule but I made up for those by ones that took less time).

In the past I would get stuck on a line and could stare at it and work it and rework it for 40 minutes! Just one line! Now I just rewrote as much as I could in the two hours and anything I was "stuck on" I would just put a note by like "I don't like how the meter is working out here" or "Does this line make sense with the theme of this poem?" etc...that way I wouldn't worry that I'd forget the area I had a problem with, and yet, I felt like I could move on, I wasn't ignoring it.

I would come back when I had the answer. Which would sometimes magically came to me when I went out for a walk to clear my head. Or, If the answer didn't come, I would then just show it to my editor who could sometimes come up with a great solution within 5 or 10 minutes.

In three days I wrote a chapter and a half which would have easily taken me 5 months in the past.  And still had time to go have coffee with my girlfriends in the midst of the most productive 3 days of my life.

I'm not relating to it the same way I was. I'm not second guessing myself and feeling like I have to research every since word that is a possibility for what might fit. I'm not driving myself crazy over every last detail.

Yes details are important, but if the work never gets out there because I'm obsessing about every last semi colon, then the desire to make it the 'best' is a waste.

We have to get to a point where we realize if the message is important, sometimes it's more important to be productive than to be perfect...and last time I checked there were no perfect people still living on this earth.

So just do it, do the best you can, and don't worry about the rest. Have confidence in your ability and show it to a couple of people you trust. What you've written can't help anyone if it never gets off your note book or out of your computer. So go ahead and just do it. The world is waiting.


1st photo with Hannah Johnson from the film "Storage" by Denver Mendiola
2nd photo taken by RT Norland
3rd photo with my girlfriends Monique, Joy, Jenna and me.