Magical Minutes

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love this quote. I think of it every time I write.

Writing requires BIG faith. And a writing project is a lot like a staircase…

A steep and twisted one…

with 87 Matchbox cars,

an Etch-A-Sketch,

and 9 dog bones on it.

Oh, and the power’s out…

and your flashlight has a bad bulb

and iffy batteries.

But it’s all okay. That’s what it’s supposed to be like.

And you have BIG faith, remember?

You just need to get started – even if you’re only going to crawl.

Even if you’re moving as painfully slow as a snail…

with a hangover.

Just move forward.

You will finish that project. You will make it to the top.

But here’s the rub – most folks don’t know how to get started. And then once they get started, sometimes they forget how to keep going.

This is where the faith-filled 15 magical minutes come in.

Whenever I am working on a project, I commit to working on it for 15 minutes each day.

That’s right, only 15 minutes, but every day. Sometimes I work on it longer – a lot longer, but I only have to work on it for 15 minutes. Then I can get on with the rest of my day feeling great and guilt-free.

Those 15 magical minutes serve an important function for me – they get me started. Because, what the heck – it’s only 15 minutes, after all. I mean, I can waste that much time on lolcats.

Once I’m out of the writing gate, I can usually cover some ground. Of course, there are those days when I get tripped up on one word for the full 15. No matter – I’ll make it past that dog bone tomorrow and take another step.

I know it sounds too good to be true, but this method really works for me. In fact, I did it for the month of April, and now I have a picture book manuscript to show for my efforts.

And here’s why it works –

You see, Fear and his cronies (Resistance, Anxiety, Block, and the conjoined twins Procrastination and Housekeeping) are not very bright.

So, while they’re sitting around my kitchen table playing poker, smoking cigars, and laughing about the preposterous notion that I think I can finish a book by working on it only 15 minutes a day…

I do.

And I’ve got the manuscript to prove it.

PROMPT: Remember all of those great ideas you had when you embraced your hummingbird mind? Well, this is the way to make them into tangible things like manuscripts. Have faith – BIG faith – and those magical minutes will work for you. Trust me, before the batteries in that winky-blinky flashlight of yours run out, you’ll be at the top of that staircase – ready to fly!