10-Minute Daily Challenge

[Doreen Peri]

Here's my challenge. Pick a time every day where you can devote to writing for 10 minutes, non-stop.

Write anything and everything during this exercise. Be it free-flowing poetry or stream-of-consciousness prose – anything. Any style, any topic.

Only rule in the challenge is to time yourself. Look at the clock and GO!

Write for 10 minutes straight without stopping.

Who wants to do this with me? We can post our 10-minute writes right here in this thread.

I think it will be a good exercise. (Trying to break through to my muse wherever he or she happens to be.)

[judih]

dor,
i do this most mornings (morning pages a la Julia Cameron "the Artist's Way") but my writing is to clean out my cobwebs and it's not meant for public consumption.
i will do this every day for 10 minutes - i promise, but only sometimes will i click on post. Is that an acceptable partnership?

[Doreen Peri]

Sounds good go me, judih! Not everything we write is for public eye, for sure! Even lots of the stuff I put in the public eye should have been kept under lock and key. lol Yes, it's definitely an acceptable partnership! Thank you!

Here's my ten minute writing exercise for today... (but I made a pact with myself to do a half an hour so I'll write ten minutes here and 20 offline)

____________

I've been thinking a lot about what to do with the balance of my time on this planet. I have always had too many interests and not enough time or dedication to pursue any one of them. So, how do I choose what to do with the minor amount of "spare time" I have left?

Why do I say it's a minor amount? Because most days are filled with the regular duties a day needs to have in order to survive. Used to be survival was about hunting for food or working to nurture crops so people would have enough to eat, creating clothing, creating meals, cleaning up after meals, making sure your family members are well fed and clothed properly, maintaining an abode to keep you and your family members out of the harsh climate, safe and warm in the winter, safe and cool in the summer.

But these days, our days are filled with nurturing our family members, gathering foods from the marketplace, cooking, cleaning up afterward, maintaining our abodes to keep ourselves and our family members warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Oh wait. That's the same thing. Umm... OK never mind. Nothing much has changed.

Thing is, though, by the time we're finished with our regular daily chores, used to be that we only had enough energy to maybe read a book. Or write one. Look at a painting and enjoy it. Or paint one. Listen to music. Or play some.

But now, by the time we're finished with our regular daily chores, we only have enough energy to maybe read a book or write one. Or paint a painting. Or look at one. Or play some music. Or listen to some.

Dammit! Same thing again.

What's my point? I have no idea. But if I wore a hat, maybe nobody would notice it.

But seriously, It's been a major topic on my mind recently. What to do with the balance of my time. I was thinking maybe it would be better not to plan it. Then again, without planning something, nothing much happens so I need to start planning but I don't know where to begin.

And given that I only have 2 more minutes with this writing exercise, I'm trying to figure out what to write to fill up the balance of my time. And I'm realizing I have nothing to say so I'm glad I'm finished with it.

I'll be back tomorrow to see if I have something more important to say than nothing. But please be aware that sometimes saying nothing is much more valuable than saying anything at all.

Thank you for your time.

(10 minutes ... finito )

[atlanticqueen]

I used to be so good about setting aside time to write. I was religious, a zealot even. Nothing could interfere with that time - nothing. But my life changed 4 years ago and I lost my time. So much time. So little time. I thought I had time. Don't we all have time?

Random ramblings on the subject of time - 10 minutes - 10 years, what's the difference? A lifetime.

So many things changed in that time. Once, I was poetic, eloquent, maybe (just maybe) once in a while I was even brilliant (okay, so I was slightly more intelligent than the average ten-year old but I felt brilliant). And then he was ten years
...

ten years younger

...

10
10
10
years younger than me

He sucked the life out of me

No more writing, no more time
no more, no more, no more

time is gone and so am I
long gone, lost and..........

d r i f t i n g

It shouldn't be so hard to come back.

I cried

10 days, 10 weeks, 10 gallons of salty hot tears.

10 fingers, 10 toes

Perfect 10

10 things I hate about you

I hated his ten ugly toes and his ten stained teeth

I love her. 10 lbs shy of a century.
Ten ways to say 'I love you" without saying a word.

And I think about myself 10 months later.
And now I think in 9s
nine years my senior.
nine months ago we met
nine perfect days of vacation
nine lives

900 km round trip from he to me
9 weeks before he asked me
9 minutes before I said yes
and 9 seconds until I have fulfilled my 10

10 minutes of my day and I am back where I belong

[stilltrucking]

thinking and smoking
thinking about this too much
anxiety
the white of this text box like the staring into a white out on I 90
my nose pressed up against the windshield straining to see the words. it is ten fifty six now and I been sitting her for 13 minutes with four false starts

like driving with a death grip on the wheel
thinking about a world war two vet I used to run a sleeper team with
First time he saw my white knuckles on the wheel he asked me what the hell was wrong.
Me driving in terror since the time I had a blow out, expecting it to happen again
he said you got to hang loose, cause if you are all tensed up you will be no good in an emergency.

I been thinking about nightmares a lot this week, I don't mind them as long as they are fresh, I mean not recurrent
I want a new episode every night
I caught a twilingt zone last week about the guy who was afraid to go to sleep.
Some night mares have stayed with me for years, one from around 1948 I think where I was dragged down through a man hole cover into a underground hospital where boys were being changed into girls

Another one from the forties too after watching one million bc, flying dinosaurs. I quess I am going through my rosebud period but unlike citizen kane I am not remembering child hood happinesses, no all my fears are rising up

they say that people who have been nonsensical for years become very clear in their thinking just before they die
ten minutes just about up
and I quit for now.

[izeveryboyin]

I used to think that in order to be a good poet you had to overthink everything and come up with clever lines before you started a piece... or rather that a turly good poem could only start with a clever line and not a truly innovative idea. Now I don't even write poetry anymore, so I'm wondering what was the point of thinking all that. Sometimes you need to think to feel important... but your best ideas always seem to come when you're not trying to think of anything at.

I find that the topic of the majority of the things I write now are very self-centered. A series of new occurences in my life has forced me to pay a lot of attention to who I am as an individual. The archetypal soul-searching. I find that at times I am quite interesting. But I also find Maury interesting and that show is basically just a live-action gossip column. Maybe I am too.

It's surprising to me how fast 10 minutes can go by. So many amazing things can happen in 10 minutes. Angelina Jolie produced a movie in which the same 10 minutes was filmed in 10 different countries all over the world. A least I think it was 10 minutes. I don't remember so well. I found out about it on Inside the Actor's Studio and was too busy wondering what makes James Lipton so endlessly fascinated with asking celebrities the same core questions over and over again and never get bored. The smae thing that makes me love reading the Harry Potter books over and over again I would assume.

I'm wondering if spell-check and editing are allowed in this piece. I'm not sure, so for the sake of intergrity, I'll just leave it as it is. Perhaps I'll have somehow discovered the secret to unending grammatical correctness. Or perhaps you guys won't notice... only I've just pointed out that I might have some typpos so now you'll be compelled to go back through the piece and see if I actually do. You guys are evil.

I've been watching marathons of The L Word on youtube just to get caught up on the episodes. It's been pretty cool. I'd love for someone to buy me the DVD box-set for Christmas since by that time, I'll be saturated in diapers, bottles and various other things that a mother is saturated with. Strange but true. I keep waiting for some sign that this is all a big joke, but my baby moves everyday, and I am so close to him now. It is wierd that my 10 minutes are up when I talk about him or did you plan this?

[stilltrucking]

look ma one hand cause i just broke my ga;lles abn i am holdingthem squeexed to gether where the super glue ids dtying and if i am lucky my hasnd wont beglued to the frame nbut i have learned a hardx klesson abouyt fixing eye glasses awith suoer glue and putting them on my nose before the glue has dried, had tio rip them odff h ha now I am tgyping wiht 2 2 hands started this about four minutes ago 1055, I dont n know what the ground rules are izz, but I was trying to not do this as a go, you know like on judih's GO board where we bounce words off each other, doing the spirti spirit game, so I posted another one here with out reading yours first, but then I read yours and I felt like a cheat, cause I did nog go back and give a real fast read and inserted about tow or three words and a few missing letters. then i read figure that it was ok to read yours cause I had rote mine completely out of my own skull and not in any way infruenced by what you had written. But when I read that you had not edited in any way I felt I should delete my virgin or first thoughts. So I am goiing to post it under this one. cause I liked it, and i hope every one will excuse my editing even a little,

I used to play the spirit game back in Pittsburh when I was a hanger on around the Carnegie Mellonn compus

done. then minutes are up and now I am going to put in abunch of..........>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and post=rejpost my post from this morning cause it was kind of a blog from poem on creative. board.

1054 started 954
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
5:28
awake from a dream whose last line lingers like a the line from a poem
the game of life, is life cruel? the peot asked.

was I kind?
or was I honest to a fault
can you be truthful and still be kind? plath my muse for so many years no she had the eye of a little god she said, not cruel but truthfull. I think the truth is a mystery, but I know the truth when I feel it. jitterbug was in my dream, a man who is always kind to a fault, always has a way of leaving you with a smile, made you feel good to know him. He appologized to me about getting me into a scam called the game of life, sometimes I think jesus comes to me in my dreams, but not as that skinny hippy nailed ot a cross in some catholic church, the first time I ever remember waking from a dream and thinking jesus was talking to me in it he appeared in my dream as a black kid, a college student. He never said he was jesus, just was very down to earth, and he had a cool sense of humor,
I am thinkinng about a line I read some where that said "trust those who seek the truth and..."
My dream is fading now, I love them all, good or bad, I think freud was right the artist is the dreamer, and where ever freud went a poet had been there first he said
what time is it? nine minutes I think
another day begins

[judih]

ten minutes february 18, no time to think, to stop, to pick my mind from the page. time to concentrate, to flow, to jam with the space of my own selection. time to think of what i've wanted to think about, writing it all down and time to write down what i've never thought i'd have time for. no time to look out the window or worry about a student busy over at her computer completing her book report. SEnse and SensIbility is her chosen volume - simplified version for EFL learners. And she is and she's writing and she read it. And now another long haired blonde student will know what we're talking about when we say Jane Austen could there be a Bronte in the crowd? how about a D.H. Lawrence. Oh, victorians. Oh, the luxury of reading endlessly long novels. To sit in a green meadow in a long skirt on a soft cotton throw. To feel the wind blow through my mind as i linger and read yet another page, another chapter of a 900 page book. To read for the joy of being lost in another's world. The characters begging me to listen, to understand their inner torment. How to surrender to another's beat, language. To read. Who has time to read anymore? i pick up my latest purchase from the goddess Amazon and i'm lucky to find 30 minutes to linger there. I swear i'll be back and yet, where does time go when there are 13 loads of wash to do in a space of 3 minutes, and bread to knead, to punch down, to bake. Salad to be dressed and lettuce to be added. Oh, the lettuce. How rich and wet and crisp those romaine leaves. How fresh. What a reason for living, to deal with such lettuce. And i deal. But where did the time go? Has the weekend already flown away into the netherlands of yesterday? Yes, yes. And here sits a student working on her book report and i try so desperately to get back into my thoughts to write what needs to be exploded from my subconsciousness.

It's no good. It's all good. There are words that long to be formed but simply do not have the short term memory. No thesaurus am i. I, a mere vessel for reporting that the ceiling is falling. What is a woman to do with such a ceiling? What answer would i expect from a caretaker? Would i expect that he'd accept my invitation to look at my ceiling? Or what about my wall. There's a wall that's slowly disintegrating, suggesting secret meetings with the neighbour beyond. Will i learn how she paints wood or plants flowers? What goes on, on her side of the wall? Will i soon be privy to it all? Oh please, mr. caretaker, save me from knowing all about her.

Back to the ceiling. And what do i expect? Do i expect the caretaker to come look before the ceiling crashes? Silly me. What do i hear? I hear that not only will the ceiling not be fixed, but that i'm to be invaded by further infringement. Security dictates that where i now have a window, will be a door! A door to a carefully prepared protected shelter. A shelter from impending war and bombs and in general the chaos that is expected to fall momentarily. I'll have no more window, but only a door....

and now 10 minutes is up and who knows where i might have gone

[sooZen]

10 minutes seems forever when you are parceling time out, and do i have time for this? Yes, i am typing aren't i...

These self-important conversations i have in my head are mostly lists of things i must get done and all because i must make lists in order to remember, a benefit of aging and packed brain cells. Lists in my head, lists on paper...where did i put that list? Grocery list, items to take to a show list, to do lists, to call lists, to see list (to try and keep contact). It has become a series of lists and not only do i make lists for me but i make lists for him too because he doesn't make lists nor care if things get done. Shhhhh! don't go there...

Enough...i have lists to do.

[mtmynd]

7:51a.m.

is the time important enough to get stuck between one and ten... to stop what i've written, even though i've not written a thing? time is relevant only when i look inot what has gone down, what has happened... the future may await time, but it is always there - timeless... hopes and wishes, fears and worries... those are relegated to the future. not now. now is when i am this - writing my ten minutes before ten minutes ends. but i shall continue rambling even when soo wants me to stop and pick up some dirty sheets. she'd like them to be put in the wash right now. i explain that i'm am doing this 10 min. deal... just like she did up above, but there is an urgency to her voice as is if the sheets need a bath right now before i or her forget about the sheets but i won't forget about the sheets because they are piled right in front of a path way that i often walk upon (or is that thru?). and life goes on and it is so early in the morning as one can see looking at the start time given at the top of this page with only 3 mins. left but i continue on as if this was the only thing i should be doing because i voluntarily approached this madness and time keeps ticking away with only 2 mins. left to go to do this exercise - woa... i'm tired, my hand is cramping i dont' write this way despite my best intentions but it's good and it's even better that the time is 8:00a.m.

[stilltrucking]

two oh 9 pm cst
these are my golden years
i got more time than anyone here
which is ironic
cause i aint living long like this
so
so
I am siting here waiting for a doctor to call me back
nothing to do but open a text box and speed up time
make the hands jump ten minutes forward
this is my third attempt to post a ten minute challenge today
so
so
if I finish this challenge that will mean I am going o
strike that line
back up key sticking
sorry
I got a funky computer today, I think I have jammed it up with too many words.
or maybe I have jammed the key board with blackberry jam

the other two posts lost in the past
out of the present and had no future
this is real time
dream time
spontaneous time
words straggling behind thoughts
one step in back of
and old waylon jennings cowboy song
I think I am out of time
no 218
I still got a minute to go
like moving through molasses
the text crossing this screen lagging behind the key strokes
2:19
done

[stilltrucking]

it was a dream again
happy to start
she looked like katherine ross
she gave me a letter from from the Newspaper offering me a job
it had to come to her by mistake
then out of the blue this old man (he was the editor of the newspaper) came up and started harranging me about being too young (I was 15 he said)
then out of the cornerof my eye I saw somebody runhning towards me
the old man had me by the collar and was shaking me
the person runing cameinto the sceen and hit the old man right in the face
I heard the sound of bones breaking watched the blood spurt
my savior was the man I had seen fallover dead on North CHarles St many years ago.. It was my father too. Before the old man got hit in the face he dumped black shoe pollish in my lap. and then I woke up, I never saw the beautiful woman again. Kerouac kept meticulous track of his dreams anne charters said, he kept a notebook by his bed. And our hereos have feet of sand, it is not who they are really, it is was what we ...make of our lives inspired by their
done ten minues

[atlanticqueen]

Sitting in the living room of my once, no twice, lived life
Suckling on the teat of HOLLYWOOD
drawn in
sucked in
brainwashed by the power of the tube
sitting here in the living room
surrounded by my utter lack of inspiration
flanked by husband and brother
dogs at feet
candles burn in air
silence sits, lurks, hides beneath the click of keyboards, the snap, crunch, squeak of of chew toys and bones, hidden behind banailyty on the air

I seek silence
solitude
solace
sitting in my setting sun
I wait

could I not just have tom waits instead?
Music for the soundtrack of my life

gravel voices from washboard lungs
ring through my reverie

So much to say, yet no words to speak
I seek
I seek
I seek

someday will I find?

Comfort, close to me, I seek you comfort, come closer still and feel the stillness of my dancing soul.

[stilltrucking]

Speaking truth to power
I was down and out in Nashville tennessee
I was pretty much a jesus freak at the time
I met all these people walking around carring big thick bibles in one had and a brief case full of law suits in the other hand. When they were not busy saving souls they were suing the hell out of everybody. We all got to tell our stories I know, they just had to tell their's in court.

So anyway there I was living at the gospel union mission down on lower broadway where all the honky tonk's like Tootsie's used to be and just aroun the corner from the Ryman. It was a classy neighborhood, I used to walk the twenty blocks or so to Centinial park and hang out around the forty foot statue of Athena in the life sized replical of the Parthenon that was built under roosevel with the depression era works projects administration.

And every night I would come back to the mission and get preached to so I could earn my keep and a shower. Night after night of dog and pony shows except for one preacher who was visiting us. I felt a call to fellowship, I suppose that is what religion is all about, belonging. Men to the left, women to the right and domini domini you are all true believers now. By a strange coincidence that is what the guards at the death camps said to the men and women who were disembarking from the trains.

I wound up joing a quaker meeting. About as light as I could travell. But I did not realize how different meetings are from each other.

done

[Andeh]

Ripples thru the air, Page's guitar, smooth. And screams, decadent, a time before I was born. 2 thousandth night, I sit here and think the same thoughts about a different person. In my head I am sitting at the tranquil cult pond, no, not a cult it is a thinker's group, those new age folk, I always danced on the outskirts of. Like the time my best friend and I attended a cat's funeral at the pond. Everyone else was talking of how "Mittens was a real beautiful soul, and gentle guide" and though I love such animals, we laughed and when the long haired hippies said "you knew Mittens too?" we pretended we had been crying. You see Mittens was the pond cat, not afraid of water or algae. I sat by frogs and real lilypads for years on end, meditating in between math equations and cliques. I went from child to adult there, even riding bike up to this pond at midnight when only bums and living spirits should roam about this, quoting the dead prophet that the center by the pond was named after.
For I wish that I could take him to this pond, with me, we would sit and speak without notes, or listen while screaming. We share the same problem, whether it be in body, mind or spirit. It's all us, we three. And I say three, for he is my Soulmate, and She is His.
And I was born before him in mind, but after him in body, and while the preacher tells us we are here and now. He thinks we were here together before. Well, I really like trees, and the bamboo ones surround us by the pond. The pond is there, by the beach in my mind. Like a Central Park of the South, escaping yupsters and giant condos. I feel this story is been told before.
He lives in a different city, a downbeat downtrodden mountain rural city, and I am hidden from him by ridges. And I listen to beats and music inside pages, always wondering, what he is doing at that time I exist and the world flows, spins, crazy. One minute.
And she thinks he is her Soulmate. And maybe he is. But whose Soulmate does he think he is? Perhaps he never thinks such things. 2 thousandth person I've pondered so far, how many more will I ponder until I have the Buddha answer of silence?

FIN