I’m working on my first novel, that’s true. I’m even writing
a little bit almost every day, or night – which is my current goal. Goals are
important, especially in writing. I feel that if I don’t set goals for myself
there won’t be anything to accomplish, nothing to strive for. Having nothing to
strive for seems like a very bad idea. Read on while I begin, not only to make
valid points but also to make sense…
Each year in my writer’s chapter we write our writing goals
for the year to come on a piece of paper. We then place the paper in an
envelope, seal it and “turn it in” to be looked at when the next January’s
frost hangs thick in the air. This was my first year writing those goals and so
far I have not completely accomplished what I set out to do. I remember writing
that I hoped to blog once a week and tweet once a week plus have the first
draft of my novel completed. But I am making those goals in small strides. Always
biting off much more than I can chew I have a full time job (overtime actually
as I run my own business), I have another part time job, I am writing my novel,
reading novels and studying, trying to blog and tweet (I have 3 active blogs
and 6 active twitter accounts) and I have a regular, yet a little crazy
exercise program as well as relationships to maintain. Forget about eating,
sleeping or cleaning house - there is absolutely no time to fit in those
mundane aspects of life.
The one constant, throughout my entire life, that I’ve
always returned to over and over and over again is writing. It’s like my warm
blanky. I can sit on my couch or lie in my bed and wrap myself up in my
computer keyboard and screen. The warm soft glow encroaching on what might
otherwise be a sad and lonely existence. When I tap out these letters I can be
whomever I want, say whatever I want and reach my little cyberfingers out
across the interweb, knowing not whose warm and wet eyeballs will find them.
I don’t mind that I’m an overachiever who wakes up each and
every morning, rolls out of her bed with her puppy and kitty at her side, each
begging for attention; stumbles into the kitchen to start the hot water for the
coffee press; jumps into the shower and then goes until very very late at night
when she collapses like a folding chair into the bed once again.
I don’t mind that in between the time I awake and the time I
sleep there are thoughts brewing in my consciousness like bacon sizzling on a
hot griddle. Sometimes they’re ripe for the picking, or crisp enough for the
journey from skillet to plate to mouth and other times they are just beyond the
edges of rapture, missing their goal like a poor lip synch in an old poorly dubbed
kung fu flick.
At times, what matters the most is just doing it. Sure if
you do it you should do it well BUT if you don’t do it all can the ideas become
realities? The answer is no. No bounty was never harvested without the seeds
first being planted. No best picture was ever won without the screenplay having
been written.
So there you have it, my crazy advice that seems to lead directly to adrenal fatigue. Make those goals and keep them. Make those dreams become a
reality. The only one stopping you is me, seriously though – it’s you – but if
blaming me will get you off your ass, then by all means go right ahead.
