The Parking Lot Confessional

By S. C. Green

S. C. Green

I find it quite ironic that this week’s topic is “Making Time”, and I’ve been unsuccessful in finding anytime at all to write my post. I could throw out a number of excuses: my wife needed a break from caring for the baby, the house is too noisy to think, the shed is without heater and inhospitable in this cold rain, and on and on. They’re all true, but here I am, down to the wire, pounding this out.

Really, it all comes down to the choices I’ve made. I used to avoid writing both subconsciously and consciously. Do I go for the instant gratification from playing a video game and watching a movie, or do I work on something that will take months before I get that same feeling? I tell you what I picked. Games and movies, baby.

Then came a day when I finally finished my novel. I realized how wrong I was in my original assumption. Sure instant gratification is great, but it doesn’t compare to the gratification in completing a project all on your own. No help. No rules save what I set upon myself. All me. Damn that feels good.

So I made changes.

No more video games. No cable TV. Very few evenings out. I carved out all the things that didn’t aid in my dreams and desires. Those things couldn’t compare to that sense of accomplishment, to create a world and people from my mind and words, twisting their lives’ fortunes. I didn’t know I had an inner megalomaniac. I love it, and I want it again and again. Oh, I will get it.

Now insert life once more. There are few things I hold higher than my writing career. Family and friends (true friends, not the ones that only call up wanting to borrow your truck and moving skills). At this moment my writing does not support them. The majority of my time goes to my job (physically, if not mentally), and I refuse to skimp on quality time with my kids and wife. So how do I make time for everything?

I can’t.

Some days I will write until my fingers bleed, while others I’ll be cooing over my one-month-old (I’m already wrapped around her finger, which is a considerable feat since I’m not that flexible and her finger is really tiny). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them in the least. I made the conscience decision to have them in my life forever, and I will not rescind. They’re my reason to wake up in the morning.

Now I’m learning to scrap together spare moments here and there. A spare fifteen minutes in the morning, eking out a few lines before succumbing to sleep, stolen minutes at work (which is where I am now). It might not seem like much, but it adds up in the long run. The thing is, I’m not giving up just because life got complicated. It’s forcing me to be creative.

And being creative is not all that bad.