Is anything holding you back from your dreams? Is it time, organization, commitments, or is it you? Writing certainly takes time, those first drafts can take forever and then you have to add in time for edits, critiques, studying the craft, building your brand… Organization is most certainly helpful, there’s so much to keep track of, your character’s names, traits, passions…your plot points…grammar and formatting…edits… The list of things competing for your time is long. When the precious hour presents itself, are you taking advantage or do you occasionally let insecurity slip in unnoticed and steal the precious time away?

The benefit of never finishing is you haven’t given it your all and that’s your built in excuse for why you’re not published. I’m not published, but the book’s not finished. What will I say when I’m finished? Hmm, the insecurity bell is ringing a little too loud over here. Now that my schedule is back to the new normal, I’m finding old battles to fight once again.

How can I compete with my insecurity? Maybe it’s all in the perspective. Sure I want to get published, I want to share my stories with as many as I can. But what really drives me is the story. Until I finish, I won’t know how my story ends. Sure I know the general plot, but edits change things, they change motivations, decisions, experiences and that’s what I must know. I must know the whole story. I must move on to the next story.

Perspective, it’s my spoonful of sugar this week.

Do you have writing insecurities you battle? If you do, what helps you fight back?

The Goals – week-6 results

• Spend at least 1-hour a day with my characters- done. I made some progress on edits this week and it fueled the time I spent with just me and my characters.
• Weekly progress in word count, editing, and/or plotting- 1/2 done, again. A big portion of my week was spent getting organized on my new laptop. I love my new laptop, no more waiting for the machine to catch up with me. I feel like I’ve been given the gift of time. The organization needed to be done, but at times I felt like I was procrastinating from the real business at hand. I need to get these edits done so I can send the MS to betas. It’s time for another goal here to keep my eye on the prize, which is finishing. More on that next week. I did get through some simple line edits this week, but I have a much bigger task ahead of me. WEEK 7 PRIORITY.
• Finish reading current craft book- I spent no time with Margie this week. I will consider this goal this week while I create my new goal. My edits need to make traction and so does this goal. WEEK 7 PRIORITY.
• Workout a minimum of three times a week and round it out with plenty of water, sleep and my calorie limit- done.
• Study one of the Nia 52-moves each week- Chop Cut. Chop the air with the edge, or “blade side,” of your hand. Keep your thumb and finger extended, and your wrist mobile, to support a powerful chopping action. Let gravity work for you. As you chop downward, imagine you are vanquishing something that is holding you back from achieving all you desire. Use emotion and sound to move closer to your dreams.
• Finish the Nia Sanjana-routine bars and start the Nia Opal-routine bars (i.e. studying the song/movement structure)- I can hardly believe it, I finished mapping another song!!! I have just one more song to map for the Sanjana routine.
• Stay on top of my co-op preschool Treasurer responsibilities- done. It was an easy week, just two meetings.
• Organize something in the house each week-  This week I accomplished two non-writing/non-Nia items. I finally cut back all my rose, raspberry, and evergreen bushes. We had some good weather this week and I totally took advantage. In addition, I made applesauce yesterday, yum. I should give myself extra credit in strength training too, I turned that food mill a billion times yesterday 🙂 Neither task was organizational, but they needed to get done and both took a good chunk of time.

I think I might have to use that Chop Cut on my insecurities. The last two sentences of the move’s description is going to give me back my power this week, that and me developing a new goal. I’m taking back control. Spoonful of sugar. Chop Cut.

Hope you all have a fabulous week

What you might have missed here this week: 

Flash Fiction #29 – The Light