Imagining the Future
May 17, 2001
7:09 a.m.
An advantage of completing a draft quickly, then going back and doing the research you need is that the research can be done in a bit more direct fashion. No dilly-dallying around. Find what you need, and get the heck out of Dodge. The disadvantage, of course, is that you lose the playful feeling you get from just reading along and finding where whimsy takes you. But, hey, it's a tough life. We makes our choices, and we moves along. I'm sure you feel incredibly sorry for me. The first wave of my reading is done. This was a catch up morning, meaning that I spent time getting all my short story records put back together, and I filed a few things, and I generally got my "situation" back up to date. Turns out I'll be traveling again tomorrow, which means that to do wave two of my reading in the near future I'll probably need to stop at the library on the way out of town today. Otherwise I'll not get the few more things I need until at least Saturday, and possibly not until Tuesday. I really want to get my reading done by the end of the weekend if at all possible. Do you ever find yourself looking out over the next few days and running them over and over in your head? I do it all the time, and I figure, being me and all, that this is a normal thing. But then ... anyway. Regardless of whether it's normal or not, I run the days out ahead and think through my high level goals for them. This weekend--finish reading. Monday-Wednesday--gather notes and thoughts. Focus. Thursday/Friday--print book, begin post-it work. Overall goal--be prepared to begin draft #2 no later than the end of the month. I'm never really sure if I can be successful at these things as I imagine my days. But I always imagine myself getting through them, and that mere image of me doing it and making it happen is enough to set me at ease. I suppose it's a visualization technique from back in my days of playing high school basketball when the coach taught myself to imagine myself making free throw after free throw. I was a pretty decent free throw shooter as a kid. Part of the vision, though, is to remain focused. Part of the vision is to remain singleminded throughout. For me, a guy with a family and a job that is suddenly requesting a vaster amount of my "free time," this means not letting myself get pulled away from the tiny little things that can drain my time. And so today I'm getting all those thing back in order. It's made for a bit of a boring morning. But it'll be worth it.   Have a great day.  Our hearts bleed for you, Ron Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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