My whole life I wanted to be a writer. “That’s a r-e-e-e-a-l-l-y original opening sentence and an even more original dream,” I hear the snarky voice of my inner censor. “Well, I know… you’re right,” I concede.
Normally, this is exactly how far I would get before feeling defensive and letting the inner censor shame me for even thinking that I could have something worthwhile or interesting to write. But today I’m going to play a little trick on the inner censor and see how much I can get away with. I’m calling this trick, “writing in the meantime.”
Meantime is the time between the moment an idea first pops into your head and the moment the inner censor clobbers it into extinction. It’s the time between wallowing in anxious insecurity and lapsing into abject apathy. It’s the time between the first buzz of morning coffee and answering the first soul-crushing email from work. It’s the almost imperceptible time that lives between worrying about unpaid bills, making plans for dinner, and checking your phone for the latest disaster. It’s the time that comes and goes unnoticed while trying to find time for the things we think we want to do. It’s the fleeting, fanciful flash of time between the past and the future. Its actual name is “Now,” but most of us only know it as “Until” or “Since”.
