Housekeeping
March 9, 2000
6:59 a.m.
I spent a good deal of the morning doing the housekeeping. You know, the business part of this whole writing/dreaming thing--updating submission lists, reviewing old stories, paring out ones that I think are not as good as they could be, thinking about where to send ones that I still think are good. Somehow, I lived through it. A few days ago I complained about having too much to do, and nothing has changed in that corner. Work is draining my energy right now--we're in a heavy period of development, which requires a lot of thought and a lot of focus, and I've still got a lot of writing projects on my plate. So I looked at what I'm working on with an eye toward prioritizing. Now, when I say prioritizing, a lot of people say well, that's saying what comes first, then second, then third. And, of course, they're right. It's even in the dictionary that way. But right now prioritizing means deciding what not to do. I think this is often hard for writers. I know it's hard for me. After all, I've got all these ideas that I think are good. Why wouldn't I want to write them. But for me, after awhile, too many ideas clutter up my thought space and make it more difficult to focus. I create focus by clearing away work. This means I chose only a single piece, and I see it through to the end. So, my priority list consists of a single item that I pull out of the cloudy muck of possible work. The rest I put away, perhaps never to come back to, perhaps to come back to next week when I go back to examine the pile again. So today I've said goodbye to a bunch of ideas. It's a bit of a sad thing. With luck I'll see them again, of course. But you never know. And to make it worse, I'm only halfway through my process. I still don't feel that sense of purpose that I know will carry me forward. But it will come.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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