Busy is as busy does . . .

By Lonnie Cruse

I recently spent an eternity in a student dental hygienist's chair at a local technical/vocational school. Don't get me wrong, she did a wonderful job on my teeth and gums. Very through, which I really needed. The students there don't just scrape the tartar off your teeth, whiz a little polish over them, and send you on your way. They carefully check your teeth, one by one, to see if they've retained the proper gum depth or have receded, and they carefully check the rest of your mouth to see if there are any other problems, like suspicious spots. Having lost a sister to cancer in the roof of her mouth, I'm obviously cautious. But all this care takes time. A loooong time.

Added to that, I have a VERY hair-trigger gag reflex. I can watch the gory forensic shows on TV or read books or do research on same and not turn a hair. I mothered three boys, and we all know how gross small boys can be when they put their minds to it. (Or grown up boys when the mood strikes, sigh.) Still I never turned a hair over that either. But approach me with anything resembling a dental tool and the gag reflex quickly kicks in. For this particular visit they actually had to feed me peanut butter crackers and water to calm my stomach and finish the visit.

I survived this visit, as I usually do, but it dawned on me that the hardest part for me in a dental chair is . . . THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO BUT JUST SIT THERE AND THINK. No books to read. No TV to watch. No needlework to work on. No laundry to fold. No meal to cook. Just sit there with my hands tightly gripping a tissue, thinking my own thoughts. Wow, I am soooo not used to that, and it struck a chord in me. How busy (should I say multi-tasky?) am I every day? How busy or multi-taky are most of us? Most of the time?

At home I rarely watch television without something to do in my hands. Needlework to work, greeting cards to make or send, a book to read during commercials, laundry to fold, dinner to stir. Whatever I can find that needs doing. It's what we women do. I admire men (including my hubby) who can actually watch TV without doing anything else at the same time. So for me, time in the dental chair REALLY stretches out with nothing else to do. I'm thinking of taking my iPod next time and listening to a book. Except the ear plugs might get in the tech's way. Sigh.

I suppose the reason this "nothing to do but think" business struck me this visit was because I've been reading a book about time management for women. I have to say, it's a great book with suggestions on how to save time and get more done, yet the author doesn't advocate filling every single hour of our waking day with busyness. She strongly encourages women to budget their time, not waste it, but she also strongly encourages taking time to enjoy a sunset, watch the birds, interact with our family, particularly children, rest, regenerate, etc. In other words, we don't have to be doing something "important" every minute of every day. We need time for ourselves, to recharge.

Having spent many long hours at my computer for the last nine years writing my mysteries and other long hours promoting them, I needed something like this. I needed to stop and think about what really needs to be done each day . . . and more importantly, what doesn't. What to spend my precious twenty-four hours per day on, and what to let go.

What about you? Are you stressed out by trying to get everything done on time? Are you too busy living your life to enjoy it? Too busy getting things done? One of the things you can do (assuming you aren't already) is make lists. That helps you to see what's really important in your life and what isn't. What can be put off and what demands your attention in the here and now.

If you'd like to know the title/author of the time management book, contact me offblog at nevada1943@yahoo.com. And if you think you need a couple of hours with nothing at all to do, call your local dental hygienist. By the way, the vo-tech schools that teach this class charge far less for a check-up/cleaning than you'd have to pay at the dentist's office. Just a thought.

Writing in the Spaces

by Darlene Ryan

When I wrote my first book—A Mother’s Adoption Journey—the munchkin was a baby, just over a year old. Her father was away five days out of every nine working in another city. There wasn’t a lot of time to write. One of the things I learned back then was if I waited for inspiration to hit I’d never write. And the other was that I had to take advantage of whatever bits of time I could find. I call it writing in the spaces—taking advantage of all those chunks of lost time in a day—time waiting for someone or something else. Five minutes here, fifteen there can very quickly add up to a page a day. And in a year a page a day becomes a book.

Take time where you find it.

I carry a notebook with me most of the time. Several of my writing friends never go out the door without their Alphasmarts. I’ve spent time writing in the doctor’s waiting room, at the orthodontist’s office, at the Diabetic Clinic, and at the back of the school gym during a speech by the principal—she was a little long-winded that day.

Inspire yourself.

I’ve been hit by the boom on a sailboat, by a soccer ball, a two-by-four, a car door and a sewer pipe—which is partly why I’ve spent so much time writing in my doctor’s waiting room. I’ve rarely been hit by inspiration. But I’m often writing something in my head while I’m doing something else—which might explain all those “non-inspirational” whacks to the head I have suffered.

When I’m scrubbing the kitchen floor I’m also writing a scene in my mind. Waiting at the express checkout in Wal-mart I’m trying to fix a plot-hole in my outline. And if you notice me mumbling to myself when I’m out on my daily walk that’s because I’m working on dialogue—or practicing to sing back-up for Rascal Flatts.

Don’t finish that thought.

Whether you’ve been writing for ten minutes or two hours, when you stop, set up your next starting point. Scribble a few notes about what happens next. Read the next paragraph in your outline. Some writers swear by stopping in the middle of a scene or even the middle of a sentence.

Just do it.

Don’t waste time staring at an empty page or blank monitor. (Which you won’t have if you’ve already set up your starting point.) No checking emails just one more time or warming up your fingers with a quick game of Solitaire. When you have time to write, write. Don’t worry about exact grammar or finding the perfect adjective. Get the words down on paper. Churning out words without obsessing about every one may feel weird at first. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I swear.

Maybe you’ll end up with a scene you’re certain is badly constructed, poorly written drivel. Maybe next month when you’re looking at the same scene in rewrites you’ll be surprised at how good it was.

Don’t write.

Yep. That wasn’t a typo. Spending every spare minute writing or thinking about writing will turn you into a twitching, stressed out drudge. Make sure some of those free minutes in the day go to your family, your friends and you. Have coffee with a friend instead of your notebook sometime. Once in a while spend those few minutes standing in line imagining yourself chatting up Matt Lauer on the Today Show. (Love you, Matt!)

So how about giving it a try for the next month? Five minutes here, twenty there. At the end of the month see if you’ve written more than you usually do. That’s it. Let me know how it works. You can email me through my website: www.darleneryan.com I promise to take five minutes to answer.