Kim and I never argue about money - we see things pretty much the same there. We don't spend what we don't have and we pay people and institutions immediately.

Almost all of our early arguments were about time.

Once Kim is somewhere she is there. She will spend plenty of time with the people who are there and will often be one of the last to leave. It's a family trait. Her dad is like that, her brother and sister are like that, and her cousins are like that. Sometimes at family parties the spouses will compare notes on the hour or so that follows one of the family members saying "well, I've got to go."

I'm more schedule driven. It's not that I don't enjoy where I am, but I'm also aware of the next thing I need to do. I've been working on this for years and have gotten much better at it. It's a family trait for me as well. You can see it in my father and my siblings. In fact, you can tell how far I've come by comparing me to them.

I don't know why I've always felt that way about time. It feels like a resource that is continually draining. I don't know if it's because of Elena's death that I'm so aware that there are no guarantees for how much time we might have left. Actually, her death highlighted how glad I am that I always took time for my kids. That they came first. That seems to be the best spending of time ever.

Jon Winokur tweets as @adviceToWriters with quotes from famous authors. A recent tweet quoted Ben Franklin as saying "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

I don't know why I've never heard that before. It's such a simple and powerful message for writers.

Each day you have a choice. If you're not going to write something worth reading then put down your pen or computer and go do something worth writing.

It's your choice.