A Man Divided

They say that time is constant. By which I mean every hour is sixty minutes, every minute sixty seconds ... blah, blah, blah.

I’m sorry, not to be unscientific, but I just don’t see how this can be true. The hours, the minutes, the seconds that I spend droning away at work (I won’t bore you with what I do. It’s too depressing.) seem so much heavier than the same time I spend on writing. Seconds do not equal seconds my friends.

The hardest part of writing, funny enough, isn’t the writing at all. It’s digging up the time to put your butt in the seat. I have a saying: I work to live, not live to work. Isn’t it a shame that we waste so much time working our lives away, missing out on the things we love most. We ration ourselves out like the last piece of bread divided among an army.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for my job. It’s just frustrating when you read what established writers have to say on the subject. Oh, I read fifty novels a month. I write ten hours a day. I don’t worry about my household chores. I just sub them out to someone else.

Yeah right!

Read a lot. Write a lot. This is what is said to be the key to becoming a good writer. I don’t disagree. But there are only so many hours in a day. At least eight go to work. Another two to four go to maintaining the house after work. There always seems to be some obligation reaching in an stealing another couple of hours or so. Sleep ... can’t forget sleep. I’ll give that necessity five hours, on average.

So what’s left? Not enough.

So here is where I’m divided. Do I read? Do I write? Do I edit? Do I spend the time submitting my work? Or should I write an entry to my blog (one that maybe no one will read)? All of these are important. All.

Maybe someday, when I’m established, and someone is paying me to do the things I love, I’ll have more to ration out to my army. It will probably still be bread, but at least there will be a few more slices to work with.