A Writer’s Life: No Time to Kill by Leona Beasley

I guess I never really lack things to write about—only the time to get them done.

Now time is a funny bugger. Even fickle I’d say. It sometimes likes me and other times now so much. Still I court it like a girl on a mission, a lesbian girl on a mission. Gay girls who read this page know exactly what I mean.

We, in this case—I throw a wide net to snare my pray. The pray being time to write, get myself focused and put pen to paper. I did this when I was looking for a girlfriend. Now days I’m married. I’ve passed on this skill to my writer’s life.

In math classes I liked long division even some geometry. Southern teachers, like southern folks loved to preach about the merits of the subjects they taught or the things they experienced. “The Pythagorean Theorem will come in handy,” Coach Brandon insisted with a southern twang.




In the case of writing time management long division have proven important to know. Dividing up my time between, tweaking my novel, writing art columns, searching for work, revising the second novel, reading works in progress in public, practicing reading, doing a workshop here and there, and simply thinking about putting words together.

And though it doesn’t directly correspond I like knowing that The Pythagorean Theorem is a2 +b2 = c2. Perhaps knowledge of this theorem helps create equal balance as I carve up my time.

And I don’t like to think there isn’t enough time. That thought is too morbid for me. What I will admit is that time is as nebulous as water,
fluid, ever flowing, doing its own thing without regard to what any of my wants, desires or needs. How liberating its must be to be time itself. Never having to be conscientious of the other. Always moving in the forward motion, never looking back.

If I were Time I’d be lousy at its job, too concerned about outcome, way to anxious and un-cool.

The best I can do is to make peace with time. To honor its process, not fight it at every turn, to take it day-by-day. Knowing somehow I’ll get it all done sooner or later.

Today I have twenty-four hours to divide up at will. And now that I completed my thoughts on time I’m off to write something else.