Since the beginning of the year, I have been trying to write a motivational book based off of the lives of the women that I study for my Heroines of History biographies. As you can probably guess by the way that I phrased that, I have not made much headway. I have an outline. Most of an outline. It’s been on my To-Do list, don’t get me wrong. It just happens to have been playing hopscotch down my list for months. Instead of actually working on it, I simply move it to another day. I figured I’d get to it later. Then later, turned into later, which turned into later, which turned into, “I am never going to work on this am I?”
That’s when it occurred to me. Maybe the reason that I kept putting off working on it, is because I didn’t actually want to work on it. Maybe part two of my Heroines of History plan (books geared toward juveniles) should have actually been part one. Ah-ha! I don’t want to scrap the motivational book completely, but I don’t want to do it first.
It was also around this time that I was bemoaning the fact that I can’t draw. Well, let’s say that my skill is not good enough to illustrate a children’s book. I have the text for my next book done, but as my illustrator is currently engaged, I can’t move that project forward. Which was making me REALLY frustrated. Not at my illustrator, but at myself. That I was unable to do it on my own and was reliant upon somebody else. I know, *gasp* having to rely on somebody else is the worst thing ever! I bet you can guess which answer I choose on personality tests when they ask if I prefer to work by myself or in a team.
I was seriously working myself up over this. Then, once more, a realization hit. I don’t need to publish two children’s books in the same year. This one can wait until next year. The world will not end and all of my plans will not go up in smoke. 2016 is a lovely publication year for Monsters in the Night. So, that project can be shelved for a bit and I can focus on other things . . . like finishing my novel and working on step two (which is now step one) of my Heroines of History plan.
Amazingly enough, since switching up these priorities I have been a lot more excited about working on my projects. I have gotten more done in the past two weeks with my juvenile Heroines of History books, then I got done with my motivational book all year. I can’t stop thinking about it. I had to take a break from doing the dishes last night so that I could write out some notes. I wish that I had more time to work, and I can so clearly see the path that this project needs to take. I had none of that with the motivational book. In fact, I was trying to figure out how to motivate myself to write the motivational book.
As for my novel, I have rewrites and things to do piled up to my eyeballs, but instead of getting stressed out about it, I’m excited for where it is going, and how close I am to being done. Seriously, so close! I can almost taste it! Once again, I’m excited about my work. Go figure, I started focusing on what I wanted to do and on what I can do instead of what I thought I should do, and what I couldn’t do and things got so much better. I am of course saying all of this, so that in a month and a half when I start freaking out about things that are completely out of my control and I don’t want to see another word about the Civil War, you all can remind me of the way that I feel right now. And then tell me to get back to work.