Tag: #Advice

  • Edited Graduation Letter

    I have a niece that is about the graduate from high school, and I was drafting a letter as part of our congratulations to her. I cut a joke out of the letter, as I don’t think it fits with the rest of the letters tone.

    But, I’m not one to waste material…

    “But, you’ll be away to college soon enough, and I won’t bore you with advice of what to do, or expect.

    Okay, maybe just one piece of advice that I have been sitting on. Follow your passion, even if it changes over time, and though it might not always work out the way you think, you will meet the most important people of your life on that journey.

    That was rather more serious than I wanted, and I might have lifted that from Power of Myth, or Spock from Star Trek; I’ll go a little lighter from here on out.”

  • Steal That Time to Write

    Last night I was able to get about 500+ words done on the novel. (My goal is 1,000 words a day, but that might be too ambitious.) I had to steal moments to get it done while I was making dinner. The brussel sprouts were sautéing, and I added a paragraph; that sort of thing. It was very scattered, but I am trying to finish a first draft; it doesn’t have to be perfect.

    It reminded me a conversation I had with a playwright friend of mine about setting aside time to write. He is a married father of two, both kids under 10. He is a stay at home dad, but that position does not afford him any additional time to write, as any stay at home parent would tell you.

    What my friend told me was that before kids, he wrote anytime he felt like it. Now, as a stay at home parent, he had moved into a system of taking notes when an idea hit him, and then having to find the time in his schedule to write out the idea. He actually felt it made him a better writer. As he told me, he might only have one hour to work a day, so he knew that if wanted to get his idea accomplished, he had to focus and use every minute of that hour.

    Not that I am at that point, but I am beginning to find this to be solid advice.