My dear friend, Karen Batchelor, was an inspiring and wonderful writing teacher. She passed away too soon, December 2013. I was looking through material to post here and came across this gem by Karen. I hope you enjoy it and hope it inspires you to Just Write.
Lower Your Expectations, by Karen Batchelor
When 2012 arrived, I dismissed the thought of making any new year’s resolutions. After all, those aspirations often died just days or hours after their birth. However, on January 1, a tiny little idea began to germinate. A few minutes later when the concept was fully formed, I started in on my new project.
My goal: Write a minimum of five minutes a day.
I can hear some of you chuckling. What kind of a goal is that?
In fact for some time, neither grandiose nor modest intentions have worked. Although I could create a lot of excuses, I really didn’t create any pages of great or even mediocre literature. I just couldn’t make this determination stick. When puzzling over this phenomenon, I recalled a story told by a friend and former colleague. She confided that she made a bargain with herself. If she got up early and went to the gym, she wouldn’t have to do anything once she got there. She didn’t have to jog on the treadmill, lift weights, swim laps, stretch or bend into a yoga position. The goal was simply to arrive. Once there, the idea of working out wasn’t so daunting.
Then I remembered my walking routine. About twenty-five years ago, I trained myself into the habit of taking a brisk walk every day—minimum thirty minutes. I only stopped walking when I had cancer surgery, but after some recovery time, I worked my way back into this habit (up to forty minutes daily) starting with just five minutes. After a week or two, I increased the time to ten minutes. Fifteen. And so forth.
While contemplating all of this, I realized that my intentions had been good and honest—I really did want to write every day—but I had been looking for a big, elusive, intimidating block of time. For some reason, the writing task felt so overwhelming that I often postponed that trip upstairs to the computer, or even avoided it. I needed something more attainable, something to help me form a new habit. Maybe I needed to lower my expectations.
Thus my new goal was born. And it’s working.
Why? I can only guess, but this is what I think. The task is to get into the habit of writing regularly. In order to form a new habit, I have heard, is to perform it twenty times regularly. If I am overwhelmed by the task, I will probably be discouraged and give up.
So instead of vowing to write 1,000 words a day (Jack London) or five hours a day (advice from any number of respected authors), what about five minutes a day? Anybody can write five minutes a day—my three-year-old grandson probably could. Lowering the bar relieves some kind of fear of failure. And of course, similar to my friend’s experience at the gym, once I’m there, sitting at the computer, I usually write a lot more than five minutes.
It’s early February and I have kept my commitment to write a meager five minutes a day. Usually that five-minute promise grows to ten, fifteen, thirty minutes or more. But even when I put in just that tiny five minutes, I write something, and I feel just fine because I’m writing every day, forming a good habit and getting practice.
Progress report? I have started and finished a short-short story, written this article, started another essay, revised a short story to submit and outlined a novel. The total output is only about ten pages.
You’re laughing again. Ten pages? What’s that? It’s ten pages more than I produced in all of October, November and December combined. The dread is gone and I make that trip upstairs to the computer every morning instead of waiting until the day is nearly gone. And occasionally now, I make that trip upstairs more than once a day.
For me, it has come to this: By lowering expectations, I have raised my level of success. Even though this concept might not work for everybody, it probably won’t hurt to try.
Note from Marlene: Thanks, Karen. Your idea is working for me! I have managed to write a blog post almost every day, for eleven months and I hope to keep on writing. Five minutes at a time!
Karen Batchelor spent 35 years teaching English and ESL. She has published several poems, essays, short stories, and professional articles. She has co-authored eight textbooks and a novel, Murder at Ocean View College. Karen has edited several anthologies for Redwood Writers, where her short stories continue to delight readers.
Karen, an esteemed Past President of Redwood Writers branch of California, was the recipient of the 2009 winner of the Jack London Award for service to the California Writers Club.
Click here to read one of Karen’s short stories.
