March 04, 2002
Since Friday, I have been thinking constantly about focus; how to focus and what to focus on. I’ve actually had a hard time focusing on focusing.
I’ve got so many different projects going on at the moment that I’m starting to sink. In the corporate world I was known as the juggler – the girl who could take on a million projects and balance them all perfectly and produce the utmost satisfying results. Yet now with all my projects, I’m disorganised, overwhelmed, confused and for the first time falling behind.
This morning I realised the reason why I’m not balancing everything as well as I did at my corporate job is because with writing, everything seems important to me. Every task I feel is the most important and deserves all my attention. Each project that I take on I am passionate about and so all my efforts go full throttle into each and every thing I do. In the corporate world, not everything mattered so not everything got the same level of importance, therefore it was easier to prioritise.
So today I was trying to figure out, out of everything I am doing what is it that I really want to do. What area of writing is important to me? The area I’ve always wanted to write in most is in travel because that is my passion. But I haven’t been sure how to go about doing travel writing so instead I focused all my writing efforts elsewhere.
Elsewhere ended up being a very big place. I wasn’t sure where to focus my efforts because nothing struck me as the one area I wanted to write for, so I wrote for every place and became overwhelmed.
I thought I had given up on travel writing for the time being, but it has always been in the back of my mind and today, I realised that I’ve actually done little bits to put me in the travel direction.
I’ve planned a trip this month to write about, I’ve planned a summer trip to write about, I’ve been working on my travel portfolio and I’ve been finding magazines to write for. I’m giving a talk on Thursday about travel and adventure and I was even bold enough to email a hotel I am staying at and told them I was a travel writer and requested a “media package” to help with my article.
All this travel writing has been done in my “free time” as though it was a hobby, yet that is the area that I really want to work in. I don’t know why I did that. Perhaps I thought I should continue with the inspirational writing that I’ve done because that’s all that I used to do and people like it. Perhaps it was scary for me to try a new direction or do something that people weren’t ready for. Maybe I was afraid of a challenge – I’m not sure.
But today when my media package arrived, I was giddy down to my toes. I was excited, I felt like a real travel writer and my mind started to focus on what to do next, how to write about travel and the possibilities that all this can lead to. It made me feel happy and it made me feel like I’ve found the area that I want to be in.
So then, I’ve decided to focus my efforts into my travel writing. Since much of that kind of writing can only be done once I travel, I decided that in the meantime I will continue to write articles about the ordinary being extraordinary. And when I’m not writing about that I will continue to promote and work on the Another Girl at Play site.
I figure that makes my plate all about full – but I think I can finally chew it all because I now understand each bite.
March 01, 2002
The past several weeks I haven’t done much of anything. I had a good excuse for a couple of them but it was the other couple of weeks that left me worried.
I had all these ideas and ambitions, yet they remained just that. I wasn’t sure which projects to start on next – should it be the website, marketing, business side, articles, what? I was overwhelmed again and taking time off had left me feeling lazy and sluggish.
Oh no, I keep thinking, just when I was getting my stride I break it.
Of course, by not doing what I was capable of I was angry at myself. I tried the tricks that I knew of and nothing was working. Last night it dawned on me why.
I didn’t have focus.
I was all over the place with one point five million things running through my brain. I didn’t know what was a priority, what could be done next week and what really wasn’t too important.
So this morning when I woke up, I thought if this is my business, I better start treating it like one. And I began to sort out what I need to do.
While I was doing this, Claire sent me her profile for the Another Girl at Play site. I read through it and found direction from her words. She said, ” An older woman who has had a lot of success running her own HR consultancy told me that no matter how busy I am, or how much work I seem to have coming in, spend one day a week marketing. Take Fridays to work on mail outs, update websites, chase up potential clients and make new contacts.”
Perfect, I thought, direction!
So today I decided to put my efforts into marketing and updates. I updated all my sites, finally launched the Another Girl at Play site and completed the first newsletter as well as worked on the Press Release. I updated this site with new news and book readings. I even worked on creating my business cards finally and read through the book Six Steps to Free Publicity again. I caught up on some important emails, read through Writer’s Yearbook and selected potential markets. I redid my bio and portfolio and felt pretty good at three o’clock when I took my first break for tea.
Because I am so nonlinear and my head constantly swirls with ideas, it is hard for me to focus. I realise that for me to succeed and continue to work and grow, that I must focus and organise myself better.
At least I have Friday’s figured out.
Feb. 20, 2002
Language. It ain’t easy.
I have lived in four different English speaking countries, which one would tend to think would make life easier. It doesn’t.
With writing now I am confused so much when using certain words. Is it spelt with a “s” or “z”? Should I put realise or realize. Is it traveler or traveller? Do I use the word rubberband or elastic? Felt or marker? Pop or soda? Cheque or check?
I know that if I’m writing for an American magazine, I should spell the American way, but the problem is, I am confused as to which is the American way. So many different words for the same thing run through my brain that I am confused as to which word belongs to which country.
Spellings that used to seem natural to me now look wrong and I am unsure to which country they belong. I’m afraid that with the wrong spelling or word usage, I will cut down on my chances of being published. People will either think I’m terribly thick or too foreign. It’s enough to drive a person mad. Or should I say crazy?
Feb. 14, 2002
Several weeks ago I opened up the daily paper and scooted my eyes over to the want ads. I was looking for a job.
I had come to feel like I was a burden by not making money when I really could be. I had a big surgery that was coming up and had to be paid for, there were things around the house that needed to be fixed or upgraded, and we had various financial needs to take care of. I felt like all I did was keep taking away without putting anything back. I figured I should find some kind of job to make me feel better.
Looking over the want ads in jobs I used to have I started to feel physically ill. I became nervous and unsure, frightened and angry. Every turn of the page my body stiffened until finally I had to run to the bathroom and throw up.
I thought about my reaction afterwards, why it was so strong. I realised it’s because I am a writer. From my head to my toes, no matter what, I am a writer. Yes, I was a fantastic executive. Yes, I do want to have some kind of creative job that I create in my future. Yes I do volunteer as a Docent at the local Arts Museum. But I am a writer first and foremost. There’s no two ways around it.
This realisation has helped me to define my intentions. I’ve been reading artists statements all over the place and every book always says you must declare what you’re intentions are – why you write.
This had been something I had been struggling with because I didn’t know what my intentions were. I only knew I wanted to write.
I’ve had so many different jobs, so many different hobbies and past times and the only consistent thing throughout them all, was writing.
As a child I read madly and wrote so much. I ate up books daily and loved nothing better than to be alone in my room writing a short story. Writing has always been in me.
When I made the decision last April to write it shouldn’t really have been such a revelation. But it was because I had developed hang-ups about writing and what writing and “being a writer” meant. Instead of just being OK with the fact that writing was natural and all I wanted to do, I thought I had to buy into the idea of what writing was. I read so many books on “how to be a writer” that I soon forgot how to be me as a writer. I tried to become something I already was. One day, I just stopped trying. I stopped fighting myself. I stopped listening to other people’s ideas on the subject of writing and began to just do what I needed to do.
I don’t have reasons or intentions for writing. I don’t write to prove anything. I don’t write because I think what I have to say is the best. I don’t write for fans and adoration. Having a best seller or award winning article isn’t on my to do list and I never honestly really thought about making money from it until people started to make an issue about it. All those things do not motivate me to write. I simply write because it is in me to do so. Without writing, I don’t know who I am.
Understanding and admitting all that has been a huge for me and in a way liberated me. It takes some of the pressure off that I feel outside sources have put on me. It’s not an excuse to slack or lay back in any way, but rather permission to move ahead as I need to. Once I understood why I write, I stopped having to live up to some image of a writer or reach some goals set by others. I stopped feeling like such a fake, and began to feel real.
And once I began to feel real, and that I was doing all this because its just who I am, I stopped looking in the paper. There is just no other occupation for me right now. I simply am a writer. There is no alternative.
Feb. 11, 2002
There are emails to catch up on, work to do, updates to make but for now, everything is going to remain quiet.
Last week I had major surgery and am still in the process of recovering from it. I’m trying to heal in a guilt free manner but it’s hard – there’s so much I want to do right now but physically and mentally I just can’t. Being an invalid has certainly been a learning experience.
I’ve learned that when you work from home, the line between work and home sometimes blur. When you’re at home, you’re also at your office. That can make it difficult at times to not think about work. There is no office you drive home from, or cubicle you walk into.
When I had the surgery, I had it done about a 3 hour drive away and I ended up having to stay with my friends for the first several days. This ended up being a very good thing because I was out of my home, out of my office, and out of my comfort zone. I couldn’t work, I didn’t have to return emails or type up thoughts. I didn’t think about how to work my surgery into articles. I did nothing, without worry, for those first few days.
Then I came home last Friday night and as soon as I walked in the door, I felt the need to catch up on my work and get back into my pattern of doing. Even though I was medicated beyond belief and completely sick, I thought because I was at home, I should be working. The computer was only 6 feet away and I felt guilty for not being at it.
If someone had told me I was a workaholic I would have laughed at them. I am known as the girl who plays far too much and hooky is my middle name. Yet with writing, with taking charge of my own career, it’s different. I want to write and create all the time. I have all these plans that have to be put into motion. There’s so much going on inside my head that all I want to do is figure out how to make it all real. Everything I see becomes something processed in my mind. I’m always writing in my head, reflecting on things, figuring out art. I love what I’m doing and don’t even consider it work half the time. And that might be a dangerous thing.
For the sake of my sanity, (and future guilt free surgeries or days off) I need to learn to create some kind of balance between work and home.
Maybe it would help if I didn’t live in 800 square feet.
Elsewhere