Day 29: Hurry up and write

I'm going to take an intermission from my advent series of posts tonight. It's not that I've run out of ideas about that....On the contrary, there is much I'd like to write, but I simply don't have enough time tonight to do it justice. So, for today's "Day 29" post, I'm going to write about writing, and how it relates to this past month for me.

As for the advent topic, I have an essay-like post developing itself in my mind right now. The focus for it is still coming in bits and pieces and making little connections in unexpected places as I work backward from the big picture. I thoroughly enjoy this part of the process, so I don't want to rush it. Even so, a part of me is tempted to stay up way past my bedtime tonight to hurriedly write it and just get it out and post it before midnight for my Day 29 post. However, I'd rather not push this one out prematurely and have it end up being half-assed. I do that sometimes, in my haste to have new content, and then I end up wanting to delete it (and sometimes do) the next day or so. Such is the nature of a blog, I suppose.

I think there's this expectation that I sometimes put on myself that I should be able to sit down at the computer and write non-stop without taking a day (or two or three) to just think through and process what I'm going to write next, or to not even think about anything writing-related for a day (like that would ever happen). However, a huge part of the writing process, at least for me, involves just that - time to process. And now, with only one day left in this writing-frenzied month, that's what I've come to miss a great deal -- the process time.

Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.

--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation