That Bastard, Time
I always wish that I could be more productive. Back when I was a fanfiction junkie, I used to be amazed at how prolific some writers could be. They would crank out a twenty-part serial epic in the time it would take me to pick out a title for the last thing I wrote. Seriously, it was quite discouraging. In fact, during the short time I applied my writing chops to the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction, I always felt like I was a day late and a dollar short compared to the other writing machines playing the game. Now, I feel like an idiot for letting it get to me.
Why? Because at the end of the day, good writers should always concern themselves more with quality than quantity. Don’t get me wrong, some may be blessed with the ability to do great work and do it quickly. God bless them. I, however, am NOT one of those people. I need time for the process – time to sort through the details. Time to discover just where the story is taking me.
Time is a bastard. There’s never enough when you need it, and all too much of it when you don’t. Even my work with The Write Crowd suffers from my lack of time. I don’t blog as much as I intended. I haven’t been able to put any effort into letting folks know what The Write Crowd is all about, or even about our nifty contest. Time seems to run from me faster than K-Fed runs from a shower.
I wonder how you (yes, you!) deal with the eternal war against time and all its manipulations. Is there a secret I’ve never been told? If there is, I wish someone would let me in on it. Time keeps kicking my tail, and I’m getting tired of feeling like a chump.
J
J. Patrick Lemarr @ February 10, 2008