MUSE • Leslie Keenan

Time Management and Writing

Posted by in Time, Writing

Are your time issues blocking you from having success as a writer? A writing student came to me with a dilemma. She had a book contract, and the summer off to write it, and she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to do it. She has struggled all her life with time. She procrastinates, gets focused on small details and neglects the bigger picture, and she hides out in research without writing. To top it off, she was intimidated by the sheer size of the project. Sure, she’d written…read more

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6 Steps Professional Writers Use to Complete Their Books

Posted by in Time, Writing

Are you serious about getting your book done? It might be time to do as the professionals do and create a schedule. Many professional writers have a contract to finish their books, and therefore a real deadline with an outside source, and a schedule in place to meet that deadline. This is where beginning writers, or self-published authors, need some assistance. If you don’t yet have a contract, or if you are doing it yourself, how can you be sure you will actually get it done? If you are ready…read more

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Using a Timeline to Get Your Book Done

Posted by in Time, Writing

Have you ever completed a writing session and thought, at this rate it will take me 10 years to finish this book? I see this all the time and it’s based on a fallacy. The fallacy is that each writing day is like another. The truth is, every day is different. Creativity is like that. Sometimes ideas just come, and flow right out onto the page effortlessly. You might end up with five pages. Other days, you can feel at a loss and struggle just to get a few paragraphs…read more

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Time “Management?” …Try TimeShifting Instead

Posted by in Time

Sign up for TimeShifters Teleclass starting June 23rd 2016. I met a former student in a café recently, who sheepishly confessed, “I don’t have time to do your time class!” Her business is thriving but it’s taking all her energy. I promised her I’d write a blog post to explain why this actually means she desperately needs to take the time to shift her relationship with time. This is the magic secret of TimeShifting. Right now the only thing you see is the long to-do list, or the endless tasks…read more

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Changing With the Time

Posted by in Time

I noticed the birds the other morning as I stood outside watching the sunrise at 7 a.m. in hopes of resetting my melatonin levels. I was counting the days till the clocks change. The lack of light in the morning was keeping me sleeping and sleepy. I knew that letting the sun hit me as early as possible would help my body have more energy at the right time of day. I heard the birds stirring and thought of how naturally they stay sleeping until the sunrise, so although they…read more

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Vision Zero…Championing “Natural Time”

Posted by in Time

I kept hearing about yet another pedestrian death on the streets of SF. There have been 5 so far this year. Last year there were 21 pedestrian deaths. This is people dying because they don’t cross the street fast enough (a 6-year-old and an 86-year-old were among those killed last year), and in our culture getting people where they need to go (speed) is more important than human life. This is the one issue of linear vs. natural time that upsets me the most. (Watch my 3-minute YouTube explanation of…read more

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“Groundhog Day” the movie: The “It’s a Wonderful Life” of Our Times

Posted by in Time

This is a piece I wrote several years ago, and I still feel the same way.  What do you think? Can Groundhog Day, that little made-up holiday that distracts us from the long haul of winter, become as big as Christmas? Okay, maybe not, but I’m making the case that Groundhog Day , the movie, should become the It’s a Wonderful Life of this generation. I want families to gather round on Groundhog Day and watch this movie together, just like It’s a Wonderful Life has become the Christmas tradition….read more

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Spring Forward?

Posted by in Time

The day we change the clocks –  Spring Forward – is always the worst day of the year for me. Or rather the first day I have to be anywhere after we spring forward.   Add in a 4 1/2 year old who is attending preschool, and you can magnify that by a factor of ten, which this morning included about three drop-down-to-the-floor, scream-and-cry jags. “I’m just tired Mama!” she finally shouted. Yes, I was too. I’m always shocked by how we can all expect to suddenly have our days…read more

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Going Deep

Posted by in Time, Writing

From my End-of-Year Newsletter, 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I want to revisit a topic I brought up back in July (“The Value of Doing Nothing”). It seems even more important and appropriate as we turn into winter, the fallow time of the year. The topic is this: the importance, no –  more than that –  the absolute, vital necessity of going deep in order to do our creative work. By going deep, I mean really having enough time to immerse yourself deeply in your work, or to discover what in fact the…read more

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The Bucket List

Posted by in Time, Writing

From my Newsletter, Autumn 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was talking to my mother on the phone two weeks ago and she said, of going to the new Yankee Stadium, “That’s another thing off my bucket list!” That night, while giving the exercise of writing down ten book ideas to a new class, I thought, hmm, what if you had a book bucket list? If you are wondering what the heck buckets have to do with anything, a bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die…read more

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