Laziness Gets You Everywhere

It is amazing to me how often the whole zen, release-yourself-from-the-outcomes, just-stop-worrying-about-it attitude, well, works. After I told myself I needed a bit of a break from tracking down more magazine work, I was able to cross off a whole host of things from my to do list that had just been weighing me down.

One of these was a serious thorn in my side -- I pitched the story six weeks ago, I was going to send a follow up e-mail about two weeks later, and Christy told me I should just call. "Call Burk" has been on my to do list for literally four weeks, and every day I tell myself it's not such a big deal, just pick up the phone and call this guy (whom I have never met, who is busy, who clearly must not have liked my story or he would have called back, who won't recognize my name when I call, who clearly hates me).

I have not called. Christy keeps telling me I should. I tell myself I should. I haven't.

Yesterday, with the magic stroke of a the mouse, it was off my to do list. Gone! Done! Who cares if I get that story or not? I have other things to pay attention to!

It was a major load off my shoulders.

. . . and I got home this afternoon and he had called. He apologized for taking so long to get back to me. He wants the story.

This is so exciting I can't STAND it. It's my first article for a magazine that I would love love love to write for.

Um, but I'm just not sure what the moral should be here. Give up and good things will come to you? Laziness rules? Succomb to your fear and you will succeed? I mean really.

Letting Myself Off the Hook

After I realized that I was just doing too much. . . It's like everything, simply, poof! got magically better. I'm not really doing any less, but by telling myself my job was to focus on just one or two things -- the Kepler book, the new non-fiction book, and the things on my plate for which I already have deadlines and so must accomplish -- somehow my brain managed to relax. I got more done on those projects than I had before. . . and somehow I still found some time to do the extra stuff too.

Basically, the only thing I could legitimately take OFF my agenda was the drive to get lots of magazine stories. I have a few outstanding stories, so I had no intention of jettisoning magazine writing completely -- but my to do list was chock full of "investigate this magazine" and "find contact at that magazine" and "pitch over there" and and and. . .

But by letting myself off that one thing -- i.e. getting myself MORE work -- it's like I can breathe more freely and concentrate on all that I already have to do. So, work is flowing a bit more again. . . yay!

Blogs

I find the web a wee bit confusing. . . way back in the day I put up a cute little personal web site and then I listed it on altavista -- because it was that or, like, webcrawler, and altavista was the better search engine. Then LO the website was suddenly getting huge numbers of visitors a minute just to hear what little ol' me had to say about, well, um, dating, 'cause that's what I was writing about back then.

Ok, but now, there's just so much out there. It gets confusing. And how do you get your site listed anywhere? Here for example is a page about all the places that Einstein A to Z is listed in blogs. Ok, I am ALL for this process. Someone wants to list all the blog info about my book, then whoo hoo! That's just a bonus for me. But somehow it found the Einstein A to Z page for this site -- when it had only been online for like a DAY. And yet it didn't spot my many mentions of it on my blog here or Catherine's mention of it.

Can you explain this to me?? I just don't understand how you are supposed to find -- or really promote -- these days.

But, hey, if you want to write about Einstein A to Z in a blog, or if you want to link to the new Einstein A to Z page. . . I'm sure it wouldn't hurt my cause!

Focus

It is a Monday morning -- which means that it is just after my writing group meeting, which today really meant Christy and I discussed how much we haven't been doing and tried to get excited about doing more despite the upcoming holidays which zap motivation with all their tryptophane.

What I realized as I came to meet her this morning (with my little to do list that I had only scratched barely at) is that there is JUST TOO MUCH TO DO. I have spread myself way too thin. I am trying to get more magazine articles; I have given my heart over to this novel; I would like to finish the non-fiction book proposal I've been working on for, um, years; I have promised the Melton Foundation that I would pull together an alumni magazine for them; I am trying to market the Einstein A to Z book and I am under the impression that I should, like, have a social life too.

I have gotten scattershot with what I am attempting to do. I need to bring down my projects substantially -- focus on just a few things. Of course, I realize even as I write this that I can't limit myself quite as much as I would like. I have articles that I have promised people I would write, and all the things on my list are important. But there are at least a few things I can do. I don't need to reinvent myself as the biggest bestest magazine writer right now. I have been making that too much of a priority -- and it's ok to focus on the stuff that really has my heart, i.e. the books. I still need to finish the articles that I haven't written (and ooh boy, all the checks from everything I've written in the last two months came in this week, and isn't that NICE!) but I don't need to see that as my main raison d'etre.

And, I'm sorry, but the social life. . . I actually work well at night -- why not claim a few nights a week just to write??