Wigged Out

     I stress.  A lot.  I worry about things that I don't need to be concerned with at the moment, such as building a fan base, finding an agent, getting published, fan stalkers, the list goes on and on.  The great thing is that I can debunk all of these worries right now.


     1.  The point of this blog is not to build a platform, in other words, make fans. The point is to report to the world whether I noveled the day before or not.  Being accountable really helps fight off the procrastination.  (By the way, yesterday I wrote a page about another story and only jotted down a few notes on YR.  *cringe*  But it's the thought that counts, right?  Yeah.  I didn't think so either.)
     2.  I am not even finished the rough draft, let alone done smoothing off the corners.  I'm not going to send a book proposal to an agent if I don't even have the book written yet.  It's stupidity if I did.
     3.  Can't get published without a manuscript.
     4.  I have no fans, expect for a few readers who are my family and friends, and I don't think they're of the stalker nature.

     What does this all add up to?  I need to take one step at a time.  Only one in a billion people can jump the Grand Canyon; the rest of us walk around it.  We'll stumble across rattle snakes, run out of water, twist our ankles, maybe even get swept back by a flash flood.  We just have keep our gaze on our goal and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It may take months, or even years, but eventually we make it to the other side.

     A friend once told me that stress is not the events that happen to us, it's how we react to the events.  He used this analogy:
     There are three women in a doctor's office.  Room one: a sixteen year-old girl.  Room two: a thirty year-old woman who has been trying to get pregnant for the past three years.  Room three: a new grandmother.
     The doctor enters the first room, and says to the girl, "Congratulations! You're pregnant."  She cries.
     The doctor enters the second room, and says to the woman, "Congratulations! You're pregnant."  She glows.
     The doctor enters the third room, and says to the grandmother, "Congratulations! You're pregnant."  She faints.
     The same event happens to each of the women; what makes it joyful or stressful is how they react to it.

     I'm gonna write and live life arm in arm with Optimist.  He doesn't wig out when I get bit by a snake.  He laughs in the face of death and says, "This is gonna make a great story."

     Dancing in the lightening storm,

NA