Sometimes, I wonder if creative block is really just overwhelm:

You have a big dream.

You see it SO clearly, but then you sense all that is required to bring it fully into the world—and you are immediately in your feels.

For me, that usually takes the shape of: “OMG, how will I ever manage __{insert big dream here}__?”

Pictured above is the tool I used to finish The Ever Afters, which is a series of four books, i.e. 1347 pages and 407,959 words, according to Microsoft Word.

It’s a green, owl-shaped kitchen timer I picked up at Powell’s when I was lost in the many, many drafts of revising OWAW.

Here’s how it works:

I set a timer for 11 minutes. Then I got to work. I was allowed to get up after the timer beeped, and do whatever I wanted: make tea, laundry, watch TV, go on a walk.

Sometimes, I would just speed on past the end of the timer and write for the rest of the hour.

 Sometimes, I would just alternate—11 minutes on and 11 minutes off—persistently until the day passed.

A writing sprint is not a new or revolutionary concept, of course. I just want to point out what’s happening underneath it. 

11 minutes is just the container. It doesn’t have to be 11—and it doesn’t have to be minutes.  

You just need a small and sturdy enough container for you to pour a little bit of dream into—a method to focus for long enough to bring a portion of that dream into reality.

The truth is: dreams don’t come true all at once. They come true in small, manageable doses.

It is hard to commit to the scope of any dream. Mine just happened to take the shape of 400,000 words, revised about a bajillion times.

But you can commit to a measured period of time.  

In that period of time, you can focus on bringing that dream into the world—whether the dream takes the shape of words, or painting, or photography, or a business, or a course, or an Instagram post where you show and tell something meaningful to you like this one.

Right now, my dreams have only grown in scope. They are as wide as sky and sea I love so much. I still get overwhelmed, even now, looking back and remembering how many of my dreams I’ve already built.

So, I still pour them into the world, eleven minutes at a time.