Do less more often.
I’m not much for catchphrases, or one-line life-hacks, but that advice was really a mentality shift for me. It’s from someone who used to do coaching for actors on the business of the business, Dallas Travers. Now, I think she’s broadened out to entrepreneurs in general. In any case, that stuck with me.
Do less. More often.
Just chip away at it. If you keep chipping away for long enough, you’ll find yourself staring at a sculpture where there used to be stone, and in less time than you would have imagined.
That is what I’m doing with my writing career, to be honest; chipping away. Taking it one step at a time, because I realize–now much more than I did just a year ago–how much work it really is to become a full-time author. A lot of work. But, an amount of work I can manage…as long I just keep chipping away.
I feel refreshed. I was pretty tired today. Didn’t get a good night’s sleep, had duties to attend to in the AM…but I was able to zonk out in the second half of the day, and I’m in bed right now tired, but feeling like I’m ready to sleep and get some words onto the page tomorrow.
That’s my job now: putting words on the page. I can feel that now in my bones. I’m not sure precisely when the switch flipped–somewhere around when I realized what “write every day” really meant–but it did flip, and I have the mindset now that it’s my JOB to sit down and write the words. It’s my singular focus.
So, yeah…guys: if you have a mountain you want to climb, just start climbing, and then don’t stop. It doesn’t matter how far you climb each day. Truly, it doesn’t. What matters is that you don’t stop. You’ll get there. It really is that simple.
I hope your Wednesday was a good one 🙂 I’m off to bed!
Ps – oh! And I finished reading The Left Hand of Darkness today, which I enjoyed! I’d recommend it to those who enjoy “classical” science fiction, though there were definitely some fantasy-epic type bones in the story as well in the traveling through the wilderness sense, not the magical kind.
I’d say the failings of the book were its pacing and, surprisingly, given its reputation in the history of literature, its discussion of gender roles read as outdated in many ways. The core premise of its gender discussion still holds up, but in particular, the way Le Guin uses and describes femininity in the book was…well, outdated and a bit sexist.
Achievements in the book were easily her prose, which is wonderful to read, the see-saw relationship between Genly and Estraven, and their journey together into the north and over the glacier was breath-taking. I won’t give anything away by saying that by the time that journey comes to a close, I was genuinely moved.