Thursday, June 4, 2020

The Adventure: Life is What Happens (and gets in the way) When You Make Big Plans

Sorry, gang ...
You're stuck with me today because no fellow writers have sent me anything for this week.
So what do we chat about?

Okay, how about setting GOALS ....

... and what happens when you do set goals, and the universe seems to conspire to make sure you do everything BUT what you wanted to do, and stop you from accomplishing what you not only WANT, but NEED to accomplish by a certain point?

For instance: I wanted to do a first draft of a middle grade science fiction book by the end of May, because I want to pitch it at a writing conference in July. Barely got 5,000 words written by Sunday. So I'm hoping to get the first draft done by the 10th of this month, because I want to rough draft the next book in the Match Girls series by the end of the month. Rough drafts can be skimpy and pitiful, because the important thing is to get SOMETHING down on the page. Then I can go back and fix and fill in holes. You can't fix a blank page.

But I signed up for the Book Launch Blueprint course from Author Media/Novel Marketing Podcast, hosted by Thomas Umstadtt and James Rubart and ... WHEW! A lesson to listen to every day, plus homework, plus conversations with other students on the Facebook page. Homework? At MY age?

Okay, not so bad, I can still write and do lessons ... except that the "day job" threw a humongous editing job at me, a RUSH job, which means I spend 2 hours on my class every day, and try to spend 2 hours on writing every day (would prefer 4), and the rest of my day is spent editing, so I feel like I'm getting nothing done. Exercise. Errands. Housecleaning. Social life. (I know what that is in theory, anyway ... not so much in practice ...)

But I've made commitments -- to the nice publishers who give me work, to my teachers and classmates, to the publisher I want to sell to, and to my readers, who are waiting (I hope) for the next book in my snarky/humorous romance series.

So I try to get something done on ALL my obligations every day. Even if I'm not reaching my goals, I'm getting SOMETHING done, and eventually, after a lot of struggle, I will accomplish something and mark SOMETHING done on my goals list.

That's what it means to be a writer.
And yeah, that's what it means to be a grown-up.
That's the Adventure of .... life in general.
Depressed yet?

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