on Jane Friedman site:
You’ve waited all year for vacation, and you’ve decided to spend it at home, at your desk, writing. You have weeks, maybe even months, of unstructured time. You also have a goal: You are going to write and write and write.
Except you don’t.
Or you’ve carefully carved out two hours a day in which you’re not on the job, you don’t have housework or kids to look after, you’re in a quiet room, and you’re ready to create.
But you don’t.
I won’t even mention quarantine—who can get anything done in a pandemic? It’s hard to look at that kind of free time as a blessing. But you’ve resolved to try … and it isn’t coming.
Well, maybe you write a page, but you aren’t particularly happy with it, and since you can now say you’ve written something, you dwell on what makes you so unhappy until it’s time to go walk the dog.
What happened? Why is this gift of time so unproductive—and what can you do to change it into the creative idyll you’ve been anticipating?
