Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Keeping to a Schedule

There are days when churning out my 1-2 pages is a major chore. Today started out that way. I had a flurry of emails, phone calls, and a meeting yesterday which all dealt with event sign-ups for Scouts and school, 2 special occasions to find a babysitter for, college reunion activities to plan out and make hotel reservations for, and the launch of a major fundraiser for Boy Scouts. STRESS. I knew before I went to bed that I was feeling stressed out, but just decided to turn in and hope for the best (the best= wake up refreshed the next morning.)

Anyway, I woke up worried at 3:15 A.M. How was everything going to get done? Could I carry it off or would I drop the ball? Could I even remember all the stuff I needed to do? And so I decided to get up for the day. Because, let's face it, we all know when sleep just isn't going to happen that night. Getting up sure beats tossing and turning. I sat down with my calendar, worked out my worries the best I could, and then started writing. There sure as heck aren't a lot of distractions in the middle of the night. Despite being tired, I wrote my couple of pages and surprised myself at their humor. Okay, maybe it was sarcasm. But that was a tone I was going for so maybe being exhausted helped me to channel it.

As long as I write at least one or two pages a day, I'm on target. The most important thing is getting the words down on the page. I'm as much of a perfectionist as anyone else, but you can't revise and edit until you've got something substantial to read-through. When I'm too hung up in corrections and reading over the text, then I don't move forward on the project at all.