The Goal That Ate My Life
by on December 15th, 2009
filed under On Writing
It has been a crazy few weeks and not just because of the holidays.
I FINISHED MY BOOK!!! 
I set a ridiculous goal for myself and met it. I had to write about 30,ooo words in two weeks! That’s somewhere around 150 pages. Yeah, I questioned my sanity… more than once. But I’d paid good money to enter a contest that required me to send a copy of my completed manuscript. So I had to complete it.
How’d I do it? Well, it helped that I had two friends who had also set insane writing goals for themselves. We met at coffee shops & wrote. We cheered each other on and when we got too jittery reassured each other that we weren’t losing our minds-we were working toward our goals (and then we created a distraction & swiped their coffee cup).
When I’d made the commitment the only obstacle was a five day family vacation. But I reasoned that I could write during the six hour drive and at night at the hotel. That was before Monkey Boy decided to get swine flu wiping away a whole week of writing time because he couldn’t go to school. Time I had counted on. A lot. But I’d made the commitment, I’d paid the money. I had to do it.
I wrote on Thanksgiving and at 4am on Black Friday after returning from a 3am Old Navy shopping trip. I wrote for five minutes, a few hours and on one day almost 12 hours straight. Basically, I wrote every chance I got for as long as I could.
And now I’m in editing and rewrites… another level of hell.
It’s almost the New Year, time to reset goals. I wonder what crazy goal I’ll set for myself next year.
PS- Send a thank you card to a soldier for free at http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html
losing my cool
by on June 29th, 2008
filed under Undecided
Today I had the opportunity to shop without 2 boys whining and fussing. DH sent me to Old Navy to pick out some shirts for him while he and my dad took the boys fishing for Monkey Boy’s birthday.
2 teenage girls were checking out some shorts for their dad and I overheard one of them say, “These are cool.”
My ears perked up and I swung my head in their direction. I had to know what was cool.
I used to know what was cool. I had cool instincts. I could look at a piece of clothing or listen to a song and know if it was cool or not. These days I’m not so sure. I think my cool-dar is on the blink. At least I hope it is, because the alternative is that it’s either permanently broken or I was never as cool as I thought I was.
Looking at those girls, I was overcome with the urge to follow them around the store testing my cool-dar. I wanted them to show me what they thought was cool so I would know.
Maybe having a pre-teen is draining my cool-dar. The older he gets, the less cool I become. At some point he’s going to look at me and be embarrassed of me like I was of my parents.
Do you think the fact that I’m worrying if I’m cool or not is a sure sign that cool has passed me by? Do you ever worry that you’re losing your cool?
