February Has Arrived

Why does my calendar feature a photo of a blobbish, heart-shaped donut? Because it's February, of course! No longer does the idea of candy hearts and pounds of chocolate given to me by a loved one rule my thoughts--as much as I would love to have someone show their undying love for me, I'd rather have it on a random day instead of when Hallmark tells them to shower me with gifts. Or any day at all. Ya know. Anywhoo...

Turning the calendar page makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I'm no longer wallowing my heart and brain in the terror that has been dubbed Singles Awareness Day (see above; I've finally become enlightened instead of a bitter shell of a human about Feb. 14). Sad because every flip of the calendar page tells me I didn't do enough personally and professionally. It's the audible Homer Simpson "D'Oh!" when you realize you haven't moved an inch from where you were in January. The productivity gurus all tell you it's about small steps. What about microscopic ones? What about those that are invisible to the naked eye? A basket of my microscopic steps towards goals of any kind still isn't really visible. Especially to me.

But I'm not stopping, even if I have virtually nothing to show for the previous weeks.  I could throw out that whole the journey, not the destination stuff, but no. I'll spare you. I want to arrive at that golden destination, look around, say, "Eh, not bad," and go about finding a new destination. That's the goal for me. Multiple figurative and literal destinations. Maybe February will be the stepping stone I'm looking for. Let's get to it.

**PS: I've got a fun freebie coming up next week; I'll post more about that later. Be prepared with your Kindle/Kindle app in hand. ;-)

Onto The Next Project

Yesterday I spend some time looking at half written manuscripts and first drafts. Guess what? There was something in the pile that didn't make me reconsider my whole career as a writer. The gem I'm talking about was last year's NaNoWriMo project--the only NaNoWriMo session I have completed so far (not counting the camps or the dearly departed Script Frenzy, of course).

Before I could change my mind, I put the project on the top of my revision list. It's getting the full I-love-you-I-hate-you-I-wish-you-would-die editing and revision process, and hopefully you'll be able to read it soon. I would love to tell you what the title is, but that's one of my major hurdles on this project. There's no title. There's already half of a cover design, but still no title. Yes, if you stalk my NaNoWriMo profile page there was a tentative title, but it sucks. Big time. However, if you are itching to get your hands on something, I can slip you a short synopsis. Ready?

Lindley Neil knows nothing but her small town. When her job as a photographer's assistant takes her Los Angeles and New York, Lindley is having the time of her life. She also meets a handsome man in each city who are both falling for her. Love is in the air, but which one will she choose?

Yes, clearly the synopsis needs revamped too, but I'm working on it.

It's really nice to have clearly defined goals. I'm glad I have one to concentrate on. 

Dream On

The week between Christmas and New Year's is usually where we all make a giant list of resolutions we'll never complete, right? I'm not doing that this year. Although goals are helpful, they don't need to start on January 1. I don't want to enter 2015 totally lost, so I did come up with a way to get motivated without getting caught up in making it into a traditional resolution.

Dream Board -- on the phone so I'll never be without it.

This is my dream board. A lot of people make these just to have a focal point to renew and re-energize themselves in that moment, that day or their whole purpose for life. Mine serves as a way to point me in the general direction I need to go to get where I want to be in 2015. I would like to note that these photos represent very broad ideas. For example, I have absolutely no reason to believe I will ever in my life win an Academy Award, but I do think that I can strive for more recognition for the hard work I do and create better work that is worthy of recognition.

This board will put everything back into focus. I don't want to write that $8 blog post because I think I'm worth more than that? Look at the board. I get frustrated because book sales are in a slump? Look at the board. I get angry because I need help and can't find the courage to ask for it? Look at the board. If it works well, I should be posting photos of my new city, my new job and anything else good that comes my way soon. Hope is not dead over here.

Dreams. They can come true.

Getting to the Next Big Thing with a Kick-Ass Life: A Tale of Two Self Help Books

Sometimes, you can get lost in your own life. You feel like you’re in a rut and there it just no way out. 

Tell me about it. 

I wasn’t going to just sit back and let life continue to pass me by, but I didn’t know how to stop it from happening. So I started to read Your Next Big Thing by Ben Michaelis, PhD. A few days later, I was just looking for another book to read and picked up 52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life by Andrea Owen, CPCC. While it wasn’t intentional to read these two self-help books at the same time, I was interested to see which one would speak to me. Here’s how it went. 

The Situation

My situation is simple: I want to live in New York City, but I don’t know how to get there. 

Okay, literally I know how to get there. What I mean is that I want to be able to live successfully there—which means a good job. An apartment. Human connection. I’ve been working full time as a freelance writer since 2008. This job has had its ups and downs when it comes to the all-important paycheck, but it’s been in a steady decline for about three years now—to the point where even a simple Midwestern lifestyle is not achievable (translation: I moved back in with my parents three times in the past ten years). I’ve done what I can to perk it back up, but so far nothing has worked. That means I’m in a little bit of debt, and I don’t feel comfortable throwing caution to the wind by just packing up and leaving tomorrow. If I did, I wouldn’t need to read either one of these books. 

Everyone says: get a new job, save money for a year, go. Well, not here. That’s my setback. I would not be opposed to getting myself out of full-time freelancing if I had another option for a job even loosely related to my field (I hold a degree in English—it’s a wide, wide field). There’s nothing here but customer service positions—and I’ve suffered through that two and a half weeks longer than I thought I would before I got out of it. In New York, I would be more open to positions that creatively uses my creativity. And I’m sure there would be more options, even if that meant long hours, low pay or *gulp* back to customer service. 

I’ve wanted this since I was five years old. I thought I would go to college there. That didn’t happen. I thought I would move there after I graduated. That nearly happened, but didn’t. I just assumed that I would be there by now. I’m turning thirty in two and a half weeks (yikes!) and for some reason, that was my arbitrary deadline. Why would someone out of there 20s be stupid enough to carry all that debt and all that lack of courage to a city that can eat you alive with one wrong look? 

Still… sounds like a fun place to live. I still want it. That’s why I tried these self-help books. I wanted to know what I could do to change my mindset and change my situation to make this dream come true. 

What These Books Promise

Like any self-help book, these books do not promise an overnight turnaround. If any book did, it would be a worldwide bestseller and the rest of the self-help industry would go out of business. These books are a guide. They are a way to help you work through your own issues and, in time, figure out what it is you want and what you are willing to do to change your life around. 

Okay. I’m ready. 

But it takes more than just being open and ready (you may actually find out when you start reading that you are definitely NOT ready). Once you start reading either one of these titles, you will realize that it is not something you can do in a day. It takes time to let each of the subjects soak into your brain to really see any change. Personally, I don’t recommend reading any more than one or two chapters a day. 

52 Ways is a book that is meant to be more general in what you could attain. You are looking to get a fulfilling, kick-ass life. It teaches you how to discover what you truly want out of life, what’s holding you back and what you can do to fix it all. It covers everything from the curse of dieting to relationships and work issues. 

Your Next Big Thing seems to have more of a narrow focus according to the title, but really it is doing the same thing as 52 Ways. It is giving you the tools you need to discover yourself, find what you want and give you the confidence to take the next step in whatever it is you want to pursue. 

The Homework

Yes, boy and girls, these books ask for homework. There may not be any right or wrong answers, but making lists of values, what brings you joy, your nonnegotiables, and how you can best serve others is an important part of the process these books ask you to go through. These exercises help you understand what you truly have and want you truly want. Writing these things down provides tangible evidence about yourself and what you want. 

I’ll be honest—I didn’t write anything down. It’s not that I didn’t do the exercises, because I definitely did. But I closed my eyes and wrote them down in the space of my mind, not on a piece of paper. In my household, papers with words on them tend to end up as public property, and this is a very personal journey. So, aside from not having a physical copy of the homework, I did complete it. 

There are also requests in the book to make small shifts in your life. Some of the ones that both books have in common is to honor yourself, listen to the difference between your inner critic and your inner hero, love yourself and of course getting rid of the negative relationships in your life (for me, that feels like I would have to get rid of every single person I know. But that’s a problem for another day). Not everything can be done as soon as you finish the chapter. It’s all a marathon, not a sprint. 

The Approach

This is where the books really distance themselves from each other. If both books are essentially teaching the same concepts, the approach is what will be the appeal or the turnoff for readers. 

If you are looking for the more scholarly approach, Your Next Big Thing is definitely the book for you. This book has that familiar school chapter structure of: 

A) Here’s what you will learn,

B) The bulk of the chapter that teaches you that concept, and

C) Here’s what this chapter just taught you. 

This is helpful for those who like this type of structure or for those who may have already started working on themselves and want to go back to relearn certain strategies or concepts. It is a calm, caring, clinical approach that can (if you’re reading late at night) find you nodding off a bit while trying to read it. 

52 Ways is a whole other story. This is a book that doesn’t kid around—it wants to give you that needed kick in the ass so you can turn it around to have a kick-ass life. With chapter titles such as “Don’t Take Other People’s Piles of Shit” and “Quit Bitching and Moaning” you know there’s no fooling around reading this. 52 Ways is like that friend or family member in your life you hate going to advice for because they tell it like it is without a filter to spare your feelings. However, that person is always right, which annoys the hell out of you. 

I will tell you that I definitely responded to 52 Ways more than Your Next Big Thing. Why? Because every chapter made me feel something. Some chapters made me sad, some filled me with a momentary abundance of confidence. Some just pissed me off. But I felt something. And I could use that energy to learn more about myself and why I feel so stuck. 

The Verdict

Did either one of these books get me on the path to changing my life so that I can best achieve my goals and dreams? Both of them definitely got me motivated to create a big change in my life (though listening to the theme song to Who’s the Boss? can leave me with the same feeling), but as far a clear direction to start, I’m still a bit lost. I think I was looking for a more personal, definitive answer to my issues, which you can’t—and shouldn’t—expect from a self-help book. 

I know what I want—I know the options available right now to take that next step, but none of them seem right for me personally unless I’m willing to take a huge risk, which is not a “I’m afraid of failure” risk; it’s more like a “I could end up homeless” type of risk. I’m pretty much in the same place as when I started reading either one of these books. 

That doesn’t mean these books are not valuable to the general population of readers who are interested in making a change. These books can be great for those who are in a number of different situations including a career change, relationship issues, and discovering a passion that you may have left behind years ago. 

I don’t think rereading either one of these books in their entirety will help me get any more clarity, but I will be revisiting specific chapters are helpful in my situation. I realize that I may just be suppressing my own inner voice and waiting for another person to tell me what I should do—which is probably the source of my problems in the first place. 

See? I learned a lot about myself, I just need to keep working at it. So the effort to improve myself was worth it, even if I wasn’t magically lifted up on a cloud and placed into a Manhattan apartment with a steady income.  

**Disclaimer: Both of these books were free for me. I received 52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life through a Goodreads giveaway, and I received Your Next Big Thing free through an Amazon promotion. 

Still Working On It

The beginning of February brings with it another round of goals and milestones that I am aiming for. One of the biggest is completing the two first drafts I have sitting on my desktop. One is a couple of pages from the end, while the other one is about right in the middle of the original outline. I would love to finish both of these by the end of this very short month so I can spend the spring in revision.

I'm also looking forward to submitting work to more journals, magazines and other places accepting work. Once I get a few rejection letters, I tend to get lax on sending more out. But not this month. I have found at least a dozen that I would want to submit to and a good majority of the deadlines are March 1, so I really need to get going on choosing the right pieces for the right publication.

I'm also still looking for more freelancing work. This isn't really a deadline-type goal, but it's good to always keep it as a top priority on the list since that's what pays the bills. Unfortunately, those bills have gotten in the way of concentrating only on obtaining only work that provides a fair wage. I've dipped my toes back into the water of seedy little content mills, but they are only quick dips. I don't want to make them my life again because no matter how good they may seem for quick and easy work, they don't pay well and tend to dry up just when I get on a roll.

2013: What I've Gained and What I've Lost

Facebook can give you your year in review with the highlights from the things you posted. A have to tell you, mine kinda sucked. Because I don't put every success and failure on my status updates (trust me, I would be unfriended with all the whining), there wasn't much to show for this year. In an effort to be a little more grateful for what I have, I've decided that the best way to do my year in review on this blog is to break it down in terms of what I have gained over the past twelve months and what I have lost.

What I've Lost in 2013
*The will to work for pennies. Clients looking for a masterpiece written for just $5 will have to find another sucker.

*Inhibitions about sharing my writing with people I know. While I've always been glad to share my work with strangers, it's another thing to be vulnerable enough to hand it over to friends. Family--I'm still working on the courage to get to that point.

*The idea that dreams fade. These dreams I keep in my pocket aren't fading away--they are just evolving to fit into my life the way it is rather than the way I want it to be.

*10 pounds. Hey, losing isn't always a bad thing. ;-)

What I've Gained in 2013
*Perspective on my career. I can't possibly keep my head down and quiet, yet still find success.

*The will to try. Convincing me to do something out of the ordinary isn't my strongest suit. But I've definitely been trying to try more often.

*Knowledge that freelancing is not as easy as it used to be. I don't think that it was ever easy, but it has been more lucrative in the past. If I have to bow out to concentrate on my writing career, I'm okay with that.

*The vision to see that nothing is impossible--I just haven't found the right path yet.

After the year in review, the next logical step is to talk about all the New Year's resolutions I want to make. Most resolutions are pointless because by Valentine's Day you have given up, and who needs the double disappointment of eating chocolate alone in your room and knowing that you have failed? Okay, so I'm assuming everyone spends that holiday celebrating the same way I do... Anyway, resolutions are not for me. I'm going to set some personal and professionals goals, but they are scaled to my current situation and completely attainable as long as I put in the work. Now if I could just get someone to pay me a salary for being my fabulous self, I would be all set for 2014. ;-)

Looking Forward in December

I ended up with an official NaNoWriMo word count total of only 20,740. Not even half way. I don't like excuses, but I had a nasty cold throughout the last ten days of November and could hardly do anything, let alone think coherently about a novel. But that's not stopping me. I'll finish the novel by the end of the year, whether it ends up being 50k or just 40k, as long as I have a complete story to work with during the first round of revisions.

My other goal in December is very vague, but I can take tangible steps to get there. Officially, the goal is called "get to where I want to be" but I know what that means (most days). Usually it involves a change of scenery, a new job and some courage that I haven't yet found (I think the lion from The Wizard of Oz took it all). Right now, there's a really positive attitude going on around here, but an abundance of Christmas candy could be a contributing factor to that. So while I'm still walking around with a smile on my face, I'm taking the month of December to set a few more concrete goals (and enjoy the Christmas season) so that I'm not floating in the wind aimlessly in January.

One More Week in Limbo

I'm giving all of the leads I had one more week to see whether they are sustainable writing jobs or not. Hearing back at all from those in the decision seat would be good too. Then, I'm applying for a 'real job' (yes, I'm cringing at that phrase). I don't mind the idea of it anymore. I think it might help me to have a more consistent writing schedule. And hey, if they throw in an option for health insurance, I'll be living better than I have been since I graduated from college.  It could also provide more fodder for my writing ideas--as you all know, people are crazy.

Speaking of writing...

I really want to finish the first draft of my novel as quickly as possible, but when I sit in front of that flashing cursor, I somehow feel like I'm rushing it. So I open a second document and start an outline for a new novel. Then I open another one. Two new ideas for short stories. Once I finally get back to the novel, I write three sentences and call it a day. This week, the process is changing. Goals are being set. Writing time is being scheduled. My world is going to fall into place, even if I have to bend the pieces to make it fit.  :-)

The Rules of Freelancing #5: Set Goals

If you want to stick to something there's no better way to do it than writing down a concrete list of goals. It is also a good idea to share these goals with someone you trust, such as a family member, friend or professional colleague that understands what you need to do to meet those goals. You will also want to have clear steps in order to meet that goal. If you want to be a New York Times bestselling author, that's a great goal. But in order to get there, you will need to first set a goal of finishing the first draft of your manuscript. Work your way up to the next step and eventually, you may get there.



Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Goals? Sure, I have them. I may have even written them down once, twice or 150 times. I've also shared my goals with people—mostly the wrong people. Most of my sharing has been met with ignorance, skepticism and the people who mean well when they try to suggest something else entirely than the plan I'm on. Still, no one is going to get in the way of my goals, because I don't let just anyone stop me from what I want to do—only myself, and she's enough of a bitch to deal with anyway.