Thursday, June 01, 2006

Always new beginnings

OK. It's months later since my last post to this blog. My fear of blogging is that I'll use everything I feel so deeply in blogging and have nothing left for creative writing...that I can sell...and make money. Oh, that I could be another Nora Roberts. Oh, I don't want to write a lot of steamy, sexy scenes, but I do want to publish stories that will have meaning to readers, that will be long-lived! But I keep getting stalled.

The children are all grown up now. It's not like I don't have time now. Well, but there are SO many things demanding my attention...aging parents with health issues, a husband who requires a little attention here and there, grandchildren...There's the publicist gig that helps me to pay my bills, the historical gig that makes me a little cash on occasion. There are the crochet projects, the books to read, the studying I need to do, the research that is important to my stories, writing my stories...I don't think one lifetime is long enough to accomplish all of the things I want to accomplish!

But I am focusing on one story at a time. Every time I get an idea for another story, I jot down the specs and file it away, hoping that I'll find a place and time when I can work on that story's development. Well, hope springs eternal.

What I'm finding is that when I focus on one project at a time, I make more progress. It's like that in anything I do. Deadlines help productivity/production. I don't need someone else to set my deadlines for me. I set them for my self as much as I can. The afghan had to be finished by Wednesday because my friend was going to deliver it for me on Thursday to save me shipping costs to California. The bookmarks have to be made by Friday night for the Saturday ladies breakfast at Karen's. I was trying to finish the short story and submit it so I would be able to pay for Word software. I wanted to have it submitted and hopefully sold before May 31 when the two-month trail ended. (The trial assured me I could still access my files after the trial. I hope I understood that right.)

There seems to be a certain path for writers, set at our individual paces. We all pass the same way in our growth to successful writing. We just don't get there at the same time or reach the plateaus that become steps in our foundation. I am encouraged by that. And the further along I go on my individual writing path, the more intent I am on achieving my goals, of getting more focused, of getting from here (point A) to there (point B).

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