Those of you who are paying attention...

Those of you who are paying attention know it’s been a while since my last post. In fact, I haven’t been writing much of anything. That’s the subject of today’s post, the importance of making writing a priority in your life. If you don’t, if you fill your life up with too many other things and don’t make regular time to write, you won’t.

Our new restaurant, Sheffield’s River Grove, has been something less than a success. Struggling to keep the doors open has taken ten years off the back end of my life. It’s hard to write when you’re dreading the advent of nine o’clock when business offices open and the phone starts to ring. I hate the phone.

Not to be all Pollyannaish, but there is a silver lining. Stress brings focus. There’s nothing like the specter of losing all that you’ve worked the last twenty years to achieve get your attention. Unfortunately it’s distracted my attention from everything else.

A few weeks ago, my bank cut off our line of credit. I couldn’t blame them but it’s the middle of February. It’s Chicago. It’s freakin’ freezing out. The Cubs won’t come back to Wrigley for eight long weeks. Their timing could have been better.

My financial partner in our businesses has been remarkably patient. He has been more than generous. So, on top of all the pressure that I’m under, I have the added pressure of worrying about letting the guy down. It’s a lot harder to be in debt to a great guy than it is an asshole.

I have my projects that are begging for attention – Diamond Joe, Opening Day. These are serious undertakings that I want to finish, that I need to finish. But I’m not going to do them half-assed and if I write right now, half-assed is about the best I can hope for. I have people screaming for pages, but my buddy Marcus Sakey gave me some very good advice when he gave me a critique of the first draft of Opening Day – don’t publish something just because you can. Wait until your material is the very best it can be. Because the first things that you publish are going to haunt you, or give you a push up to the next level.

So writers, if that’s what you aspire to be, decide, right now, that writing will have priority. Yes you can do other things; a writer, after all, has to have experience. We have to have something to write about. But the act of writing, the ability to practice your craft, needs a certain amount of peace of mind. If you’re distracted by everything else, nothing gets done. Create the space and time in your life for writing. Or open a restaurant.

— Ric Hess, Feb 14, 08:48 AM

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