Lesson 1

The writing class I'm taking for the second time always starts with the same assignment: write every day for 15 minutes in a journal.

This is a common assignment for writers, since the only way to improve as a writer is to write, write often, and then keep writing. It's an assignment similar to Julia Cameron’s “morning pages” where she asks you to “dump” three pages of writing every day, regardless of any excuses you have. However, the way my teacher, Elaine Edelman gives the 15 minutes a day assignment ends up working slightly differently for me.

For one thing, the 15 minutes isn’t suppose to be writing that just clears the pipes, as the morning pages can often be, though it might be. Elaine encourages us to get quiet before beginning, and to try to be concrete in what we write. If we are writing about memories, try to be intentional about the details of that memory. Don’t treat the 15 minutes as a time to record thoughts and feelings, but follow those thoughts and feelings with concrete examples that perhaps inspired the thoughts and feelings.

Fifteen minutes is not a long time. I probably give fifteen minutes every day to brushing my teeth, flossing, and washing my face. However, sticking to the discipline has never worked for me, yet. But I made a renewed attempt at it this week and had better results than ever before. Here’s what I tried:

1. On the first day, when I could feel my defenses rising against it, I took some time to visualize myself doing the activity. It was morning, and I told myself, I don’t have time to do the writing right now, so I’ll do it in the evening. But I know that all too many times, I find excuses for not doing it in the evening. So that morning—when I thought to myself, “I’m too busy”—I took a moment to visualize myself getting quiet that night and opening my journal and writing. I made it a pleasant vision, a space that I would gladly retreat to, and that night I actually looked forward to taking that time to be quiet and write.
2. I only made myself think of it as a 15-minute commitment. Many nights I wrote longer. A couple of days I took what I had written and typed it up and worked on it further. But each night I would say to myself, “it’s only 15 minutes,” and that helped fight the resistance to the task.
3. I set aside one topic for the week, and despite all of the things on my mind, I tried to refocus back to the same topic each night when I picked up the writing journal. It made it feel more like a project instead of just a time to see in writing the scattered thoughts in my head.
4. I let myself do it in the evening. I often feel like I should do this in the morning. The morning is when I’m freshest and when I’m most alert, and when I get my best work done. But for whatever reason, it’s also the time that I feel the most anxiety about what I “should” be doing with my time, and many mornings I’m sleepy or in a rush, and it’s too easy to have to skip it. Once I’ve skipped it and missed my “allotted” time, then I feel like I failed and why bother. By doing it in the evening, I am less likely to “have” to skip it. After all, I can go to bed 15 minutes later. Right? How will that make a big difference?

I guess all of this proves the point that writing is first and foremost a mind game against one’s self. Both the clarity of focus and the internal fears that what I have to say will never want to be read by others work together to sabotage the work. I think that’s why Elaine emphasizes creating the habit and making it manageable. She also reminds us that we are “apprentices,” we are learning and beginning, and we need to embrace and enjoy the status rather than judging our work. All part of that mind game. Hopefully, by creating the habit, we start to put the work in the automatic part of the mind that is harder to undo.

One last thought about this practice and blogging. I’ve been wondering whether or not blogging daily is the same as doing this exercise. In some ways I think it can be. I certainly think blogging regularly can be an excellent writing practice. But something she said makes me think it’s intentionally different. She said that we use such a small portion of our brain throughout the day, and most of that is the “social” part of it. By getting quiet and making space for the reflection, she wants us to activate the other parts of the brain, to bring up forgotten memories, to go to spaces that we don’t easily visit. So I think blogging is still part of the “social” mind. And it’s instant publishing. I think the journal time is space to write without revising. To pull together the clay and mud that will later be sculpted.

I've completed this assignment for six out of the last seven days. A modest victory, but a beginning. You all can help me stick to the commitment.

I welcome suggestions for battling the mind games. And your thoughts on writing and writing regularly. And maybe your thoughts on traditional journal writing and something like this that tries to be a little more focused. I didn't really get into that comparison.