Photo Courtesy of Fife Photography

I’m gonna make you a guarantee–the ten minute guarantee.

I want you to picture me in a too-tight blue suit, wearing gaudy sunglasses, gesticulating wildly with my hands. ‘Cuz I’m gonna sell you on a ten-minute, guaranteed, proven method of writing…

It only takes ten minutes a day.

Seriously.

Like, for realz.

And now, I must confess. I never want to start writing. My typing is done during my commute. With each bump and turn, I nearly drop my macbook pro. The dude next to me smells of alcohol and body odor. It’s hotter and more humid than a rock concert in an oven. The jostling motion sometimes makes me carsick. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll get to overhear an awkward conversation between a woman and her estranged husband about how he hasn’t paid his child support. Does this not seem like the ideal condition to begin writing?!?!?!

But it only takes ten minutes.

At least that’s what I tell myself. Ten minutes, is all. After ten minutes, I can quit. After ten minutes, I can close my laptop and not worry about my unfinished first draft or my looming edits. After ten minutes, I can put in my earphones, turn up pandora, and drown out the world around me.

In just ten minutes.

Now…would it surprise you if I told you that I almost never write for only ten minutes? Why? Because, 92.7% of the time (yes, I calculated it), it only takes ten minutes before I’m invested–before I want to write. The noise of the barking woman fades, I acclimate to the stench of the alcoholic, and I can ignore the roasting temperature of the bus.

All that’s left, is me and my story.

Have you ever struggled to get started? Do you dread writing your story?

Just take ten minutes, and let the hours fly by.

(And because I couldn’t choose between images, I’ve included other pics of my salesman son :))

Photos courtesy of Fife Photography

Photos courtesy of Fife Photography

Photos courtesy of Fife Photography