Thursday, September 26, 2013

All the Small Things


Yesterday, this was going to be a well thought out post about how all the small decisions stress us out and make us crazy.  But this morning, I downgraded it from "well thought out post" to rant.  When I completely lost it and was in tears.  I had no idea how much I was pushing myself and how stressed out I was.  Cause I am NOT a crier!

Until I tried to send my book to Staples to print it.  And it said I had ONLY 238 pages, when I KNOW FOR DAMN SURE that shit is 250 pages and 75,080 words!  EXACTLY.

First of all, I'm not a person built for this technological age.  I like to stew things over and take my time carefully weighing all my options before making carefully calculated decisions that won't hurt anyone.  But the rest of the world is all iphone 5s, moving at the speed of light.  So, I find myself thrust into making quick decisions.  Which I suck at.  Seriously, do not have a heart attack in front of me, because I would be completely helpless. And need access to my laptop (because I don't have internet access on my antiquated phone) to research what I'm supposed to do.  By then you'd be dead.  So, I'm warning you, don't do it.

Now, that I'm hopefully somewhere close to the end of the book process and closer to publication, INSHALLAH, I've totally stepped up my game.  I'm sending queries, proposals and manuscripts to publishers like a madwoman.  I've also become a madwoman on Twitter trying to build my "platform". The thing is, this only creates more small decisions during the day.  Do I follow this person?  Do I retweet that?  Can I tweet that or is that mean?  So, when I lost a follower yesterday, who is a real life friend, then I questioned myself even more than I already do.  Was it the vegan retweet?  Or does she think I'm a Twitter slut?  Wait.  Am I a Twitter slut?  Do I mention it to her?  Casually wait for it to come up in conversation?  Or drop it?  After much thought, I decided to drop it.  Which is totally why I'm including it in a post.  Obviously.

Then, Monday, after a pole class and much consideration of whether or not I should take this new belly dance zill (finger cymbals) class, I decided to do it.  Which is so far outside my box.  I HATE the zills because I can't do them just standing and doing nothing else.  I CAN NOT do them whilst belly dancing and trying to remember choreography and not look like I'm having a seizure.  Which of course is exactly why I'm doing it.  

And exactly why I'm torturing myself watching other people's pole videos and I'm absolutely obsessed with everything I CAN'T DO yet, like the iron x.  Oh my god, I want to do it so bad.  And a shoulder mount.  But then taking time out to try these things on the pole means taking time away from writing, sending queries, blogging, practicing the chingy-chingy-ching finger cymbals beat.  Not to mention, my four kids, husband and two dogs!

Did I have other things to mention?  I'm totally sure I'll come up with 10 other things I wanted to add to this post.  And it's pissing me off.  And I'm not going to go back to read this shit because I need to take a car in to get it serviced right now.  Before I do a whole shit load of other things that need to get done. But, at least there's snow on the peak.  It's the small things you know.

Oh, it turns out that Staples converts word files to PDF and the reformating caused the page change.  Which better be the fucking case.  Or I'm going to be the madwoman crying and shooting staples from the stapler at Staples!

(Dammit....I was totally gonna mention that writing group I had to quit and how much time it took me to realize I had to quit and how shitty and guilty I felt about that. See...I knew I'd forget something!)


7 comments:

  1. I just can't believe how much energy you have. No wonder you're in great shape and is soooo close to publishing a book. Breathe deeply, pause, hug yourself. You are doing great compared to a lot of us (yes, ME). And p.s. I'd be useless with a heart attack or any medical emergency for that matter too.

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  2. @Joy-Thank you so much Joy! I just finished querying...am now waiting. Which I suck at even more. So I think I'm gonna pole dance now cause I don't pick that shit up from Staples til tomorrow. Even Craig can't figure out the mystery of the 12 missing pages!

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  3. I needed that verbal ping pong to bring me back into the world!
    And, I never knew what those little finger thingies were called- thanks for the new scrabble word.

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  4. Phew...just trying to catch up with you on paper!

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  5. Hang tough! You can do it! Yup... you can do it... in your own time!

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  6. Oh no!! Was it me? Am I the twitter dropper? I'm learning to use twitter on my (ridiculous) iPhone and having a hard time figuring it out. A bunch of your re-tweets were in my feed (on the very small screen) and I couldn't figure out how to move them/hide them. I really love your tweets (that sounds dirty?) and laugh at your re-tweets, too...I think I might just be heading directly to twitter to read your stuff until I get the phone app figured out. Sorry! No hard feelings? I'm kind of a techno-dummy.

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  7. I wish I was there to come over with some cayenne chocolate and red wine to give you a moment to take a deep breath in this fast paced world. You are superwoman, but even superwoman needs to take time to chill out once in a while. Love you!

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