Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Making Space

Space has arrived. The 14th and last guest left yesterday. For a while I've been writing in the smallish chunks of time, making Swiss cheese work (see June 8th). But now there's SPACE.

The key is how best to use it. How not to fill the new space with distractions. And how not to burn out.
I'm going back to my weekly lists. But they're much longer, divided into Our Spirit; Romeo, Romeo; novel #2; and novel #3. (The work for the last two is simple, just two hours daily on #2 and one on #3.) The list fills a full page, too long for here, but it's very satisfying to cross things out. Last week looked pretty good by Saturday night, lots of strike-throughs.

There's other stuff on the Weekly List - the gym, meditation... The trick is not to put too much stuff there. And most importantly, not to fill this new space with so much stuff that I need to struggle for more space again.

No question this week, just three cheers for making, protecting and appreciating space.

(art by Mark Kostabi)

14 comments:

  1. Cool. I think you are on to something. I can't remember which buddhist teacher said: "Don't just do something, sit there!" It may have been Thich Nhat Hanh but I'm not sure.

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  2. I think our blog comments just flew by each other in cyber-space:-)

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  3. Paul - a cyber high-five.

    Thanks; Thich NH has great wisdom.

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  4. Thanks, Tina!

    To The Practice Room tomorrow!

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  5. Everyone seems to be on a mid-summer upswing and I love it!

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  6. Ah, space. I'll write to that.

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  7. Jon - "mid-summer upswing"... Excellent!

    So much better than the "dog days of summer" which I've never understood and which seem as useless as boredom.

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  8. Anita - "I'll write to that." Awesome sentence. I fear I'll plagiarize that.

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  9. ...juggling the schedules, the uphill battle that never seems to reach common ground. (at least under my roof:)

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  10. I love lists to keep me on track! And the feeling of crossing them off. :)

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  11. Robert--I love you and your lists. (I love you more than your lists, but I think you already knew that.) I'm cheering for the advent of more Robert on-line. YAY!!

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  12. Hi Robert--I left you an award on my blog. Thanks for all the great posts!

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