“Starve”
Henry Rollins
“I stay out late
I go long
I lose sleep
I go without
I go long
I go all night, go all night
I make the colors go
I push my senses out
I keep my existence lean
I starve.”
For the past two weeks, I could have authored “Starve.” I’ve had to cover for a sick co-worker, and so have only had one full day off for the past fourteen days. It’s been hard to accomplish the things that I’ve wanted to do (write, read, sleep) when I barely had time to do the things I needed to do (pay the bills, train, eat).
But, since this is the Year of No Excuses, I channeled my focus away from those things that I can’t control toward things that I can. So, even though I haven’t had much time to sleep (let alone blog), I still kept my priorities: I added to my WIP (Scrapped) everyday, even if it was just a line or two. And, I read a few books.
Ever since I wrote my guest post for Sierra’s Writing Adventure, the words “Your time is limited…” has been weighing heavily on me, a reminder to focus on my goal (become a published novelist), and those things that would lead me to my goal. So, even though reading and writing don’t seem like lofty goals, when time is even more limited than usual, I sometimes had to choose between reading or writing or a full night’s sleep. I had to strip “life” down to the bare essentials and focus on what will set me up for success in the future. Since I want to be a published novelist, the essentials became: write a lot and read a lot. Everything else was secondary.
SO TELL ME: What have YOU sacrificed to get you to your goal?
Liza Kane 
Sometimes I have to sacrifice sleep to write, but generally I’m pretty useless when I’ve overtired, so sleep’s pretty high on my priority list. The first thing to go is usually my time on the treadmill, and that’s something I’m working on fixing.
I hope things slow down for you soon!
Thanks so much! and yes…slow down it has! I’ve enjoyed a weekend of sorts these past two days, and honestly, it’s like I went away on vacation! 😉
I’m like you, I tend to cut out sleep and heavy exercise, but I can’t do that for too long because my muses are the most imaginative when everything is in balance. Now, if only I can balance reading and writing time so that I get to read all the books I want and also keep up the writing pace, I would be golden!
World of Warcraft… le sigh. I miss that game…
Girls night out.
Movie night.
Chocolate cake… long story.
heehee…I would like to hear about this chocolate cake story…maybe a future blog post?
And yes, movie nights are rare indeed…but we needed to cut back on that after the prices for tickets skyrocketed. So, it was more a financial sacrifice for The Budget than time. Thankfully, Hollywood helped us out by churning out lots of crappy films, so we really only go to the theaters for movies like 2-3 year, if that.
Yay Netflix! 😉
I’ve sacrificed a lot of free time. I’m a busy college student, so by the time I’m done with classes and then the work that I have to do with those classes, I don’t have much free time unless I want to sacrifice my writing/editing/researching goals. However, I love all the work that I”m doing for my writing career, so it’s not as much a sacrifice as it is a time management strategy.
❤ Gina Blechman
That’s so true Gina: so many people focus on not having enough time, rather than making the most of the time they have!
Thanks for sharing, and ENJOY your college experience! I LOVED mine, sleep deprivation and all! ^_^
Kudos on the dedication. Just remember to sleep in when you can. 🙂
absolutely! Did that just this morning–>slept in till 9:30 when I’m usually with coffee at my desk, playing with words! What a great time it was just to sit and look out the window, and easing into the day, versus hitting the ground running going from one item on the checklist to the other.
I’ve sacrificed watching most TV and playing WoW for this round of edits. I’m getting close to finished now and my itch to play is back, but during the thick of it I was able to say no quite effectively and stay away from everything but hubby 🙂
Hope life normalizes for you soon! And for all your hard work there is a blog award waiting for you over on my blog 🙂
I’m glad that I’ve stayed away from WoW, because considering how addicted I am to story and fantasy, that game would probably take over my life!!
Thank you SO much for the award, and I’ll make sure to visit your blog next!