{"id":42,"date":"2008-11-21T16:21:20","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T16:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html"},"modified":"2008-11-21T16:21:20","modified_gmt":"2008-11-21T16:21:20","slug":"creative-disciplinean-oxymoron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html","title":{"rendered":"Creative Discipline&#8230;an Oxymoron?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\nI have never been one to set writing goals. \u00a0In fact, despite the fact that many creative and prolific writers swear by them, there is something about\u00a0having\u00a0to write a certain number of pages or for a certain number of hours every day that sucks the creative wind right out of me.\u00a0I prefer the romantic notion of waiting for the muse to inspire over the practical matter of sitting down and hammering out a certain number of words a day. \u00a0<br \/>\nBut, in writing as in life, the practical often trumps the romantic and we are forced to create within the bounds of deadlines and responsibilities. \u00a0For me, that means delivering a 60,000 word manuscript to my acquisitions editor by February 15, 2009. \u00a0This is not a loose deadline. \u00a0I am contractually bound to make it happen.<br \/>\nTo get there, I&#8217;ve set a personal goal of writing 1000 words a day, six days a week for six weeks.\u00a0<br \/>\nIn an effort to prevent self-sabotage, I&#8217;ve decided not to &#8220;bank&#8221; words. \u00a0If I write 1500 words today, I still have to write 1000 tomorrow. If I succeed in writing at this pace I will have a rough draft by December 15 and two months to rewrite and edit. \u00a0I&#8217;ve never done this before, but I think this sounds like a workable plan.<br \/>\nAnd yet, I keep wondering&#8230;<br \/>\n&#8220;What about creativity?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;What about beauty?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Is it possible to write (or paint, of sculpt) artfully on a tight deadline?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Is creative discipline an oxymoron?&#8221;<br \/>\nWould love to hear your thoughts&#8230;\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have never been one to set writing goals. \u00a0In fact, despite the fact that many creative and prolific writers swear by them, there is something about\u00a0having\u00a0to write a certain number of pages or for a certain number of hours every day that sucks the creative wind right out of me.\u00a0I prefer the romantic notion&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creative Discipline...an Oxymoron? - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Creative Discipline...an Oxymoron? - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have never been one to set writing goals. \u00a0In fact, despite the fact that many creative and prolific writers swear by them, there is something about\u00a0having\u00a0to write a certain number of pages or for a certain number of hours every day that sucks the creative wind right out of me.\u00a0I prefer the romantic notion&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-21T16:21:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Creative Discipline...an Oxymoron? - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Creative Discipline...an Oxymoron? - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"I have never been one to set writing goals. \u00a0In fact, despite the fact that many creative and prolific writers swear by them, there is something about\u00a0having\u00a0to write a certain number of pages or for a certain number of hours every day that sucks the creative wind right out of me.\u00a0I prefer the romantic notion&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html","og_site_name":"Flirting with Faith","article_published_time":"2008-11-21T16:21:20+00:00","author":"Joan Ball","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html","name":"Creative Discipline...an Oxymoron? - Flirting with Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-21T16:21:20+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-21T16:21:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/11\/creative-disciplinean-oxymoron.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Creative Discipline&#8230;an Oxymoron?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/","name":"Flirting with Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Joan Ball","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27","name":"Joan Ball","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","caption":"Joan Ball"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/author\/jball"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}