I was just listening to a podcast wherein a book author/blogger mentioned that she always writes for a half hour before going to bed. I briefly imagined myself doing to the same thing and what success would come of it. Then I laughed! I know myself well enough now to reject that as a path to personal success.

I’ve always been a writer, and always wanted to be a writer. I’m a good copywriter/editor and enjoy working in marketing communications, so technically one could call me successful because writing has already been a source of income. It’s not the same, though. I want to publish a standalone story that represents an original idea expressed through my own words. The length and method of publishing have less bearing on my goal than simply accomplishing it and being proud of my finished piece.

It’s not that I don’t write. I have a plethora of handwritten journals from various periods of my life, starting at age eight and written in everything from repurposed school notebooks to moderately nice gift journals; I have several pages of typed brain vomit in an occasionally-used folder on my computer that I started in 2001; I blogged somewhat regularly for about five years and am figuring out how to get back to doing that; I have written several short stories and even a few poems that, with a little more work, might be publishable; I have hundreds of stories in various stages of execution, from a few sentences of plot and dialogue to an outline with a partially written first draft, that could really be something… if I just set my mind to it.

One of the mantras in the writing community—every writing community—is to just sit down and write each day. Exactly what the author of the podcast said works for her. The suggestion for how to implement this in one’s life usually involves doing it at the same time every day and/or setting a timer so that even if you’re having a crappy day you will at least have written something.

I understand the theory of this, I really do. And I am jealous of those who can harness the necessary self-discipline to implement this technique because they are the writers who finish things and publish things. Even if their actual writing is mediocre at best, they still have something to show for it. It drives me crazy to read books and magazine articles that feature poor grammar, erratic or illogical structure, bland prose, thin plots and/or a dearth of insight. “You’re doing it wrong!” I scream at them, knowing that I can do it better yet doubting I ever will.

It’s hard for me to commit to writing for a certain amount of time or to reach a certain word or page count because I don’t operate well under those conditions. Even on days when I’m not particularly busy, and despite wanting to keep a project moving, I find it difficult to make myself actually sit down for the explicit purpose of writing. Conversely, when I start writing, I lose track of time and struggle to stop! If I were to start writing  anything a half hour before bedtime I would end up going to bed far, far later than intended.

This blog post is an example of how those two attributes can even mix. It’s been about three hours since I started to form a 140-character quip for Twitter about my reaction to the before-bedtime writer’s habit. I decided instead to just write a quick blog post about it. Ha! Not that I’ve spent all of the last three hours actually writing or editing. I’m doing lots of other things at the same time and rewriting a lot of the sentences as I go along.

Simply recognizing that my ability to focus is either ON or OFF helps me understand that I’m not necessarily failing all the damn time as previously assumed. I am the hare, not the tortoise. I may not pass the finish line first because my route includes naps, butterflies, and daydreams… but if I remember the goal then I will eventually get there. And my journey will result in a more interesting story.