I’m going to time this next set of words.

You may have noticed I didn’t publish much last week. It’s not that I haven’t been writing——I’ve been writing a lot——it’s that I needed a moment to reflect on the art of blogging every day a little deeper. So last week, I gave Clay a visit.

Now to be clear: Clay is not my therapist.

Or, at the very least, we have agreed that he is not a therapist. Beyond just our mutual distaste for insurance adjusters, I find therapist is too clinical. It begets to much of a doctor. I could also go down the list of why every other possible synonym just doesn’t work¹, but I’d be wasting our time. Thus, Clay’s role remains amorphous. He is just Clay.

But I hadn’t seen Clay in months. For a while, I had done what I always seem to do: fall into haphazard radio silence. But that spell of silence was so long, I worried that, in the stillness, rust had settled in. That the mechanics of our communication having been abandoned for a time, were now a broken plow left to an encroaching wood.

This did not turn out to be the case. Every time I take the moment to send Clay a message, it’s as if no time has passed at all. And every time I see him, something just clicks—I’m suddenly refreshed and re-energized to continue the Work. Moreover, I have a better picture of what might be hindering the positive momentum.

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One of the things Clay always tries to remind me of is that, although a six hour scribbling session is great, laboring over long periods is not required. Ninety-minute bursts, he repeats. Ninety minute bursts of focused writing can do more for an aspiring author than a meandering six hours.

In reflection then, I’ve discovered that my word limit is not the problem; it’s a time limit.

I can write five hundred words easy. And I can blow by that limit because writing for me is not dissimilar to a steam engine. Turning those wheels, making the coupling and piston rods swivel, takes a lot of energy on the first go. The coals have to warm, the water has to boil, and the steam must rise. But the moment it starts going, the next thousand words come easy.

Before long, it’s less a blog and more of an article. And what was supposed to be only ninety minutes of my day becomes six hours. Sure, I write and publish the blog. But now my short stories lag. I have no pictures for another Casual Camera and the poetry posts fall by the wayside.

Now, the short stories are supposed to be the prize, and they should take priority over all. But the blogs, the poetry, even the photography, are all exercises. Exercises to strengthen the experiences that funnel into the stories. Every time I wonder if it’s worth it to stretch these muscles, I just ask myself: how hollow would Lord of the Rings have been without the songs and poems and choirs that the characters repeat?

Perhaps Tolkien did, in fact, spend all day writing the “Riddle of Strider” and the many songs of Tom Bombadil. Perhaps each took longer than ninety minutes, but each ninety minutes made for a stronger story.

So last week has been a matter of making the adjustments; of giving myself the permission to integrate a new lesson; of setting that ninety-minute limit for blogs; but also of giving myself the cushion to write without the pressure of publishing the next day.

The steel horse of blogging daily for every weekday can sometimes throw a person for a loop, it can be exhausting, so it is important to make these adjustments before beginning again on the track or letting the routine decay. Rust may never sleep, but people do——they must——and when they awake, the rust is naught but a flake.

Seventy minutes. Not bad.

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1 Just for fun, here’s a couple I came up with on the fly: life coach sounds too kitsch, like a motivational poster or a self-help book. Counselor is a step in the right direction, but it shades a bit too close to school, in the same way that guide shades towards a quest. Advisor is as close to a neutral term as I can find, but the title has a starch to it that doesn’t speak to Clay’s character of compassion.