Seeking optimism

I am a big fan of the notion that you can't win if you don't play, and you'll never make the shots you don't take. Apparently not a big enough fan to actually implement these ideas in my own life. Of course they represent the attitude I want my children to have. However, when it comes to my own big ideas, I pretty much slink down into a soothing mantra of "If you don't start, you can't fail" (muttered between mouthfuls of chocolate). Pitiful! So it is safe for you to assume that there has been no actual progress on my book as of late.

Actually, that is not completely fair to say. I was having some trouble focusing while on the family computer, with all of its hooked up to the internet fascinations and bright shiny colors. The ipad also gave me the luxury of checking in on other blogs in addition to other great distractions like Words With Friends. Although it has not been providing me the luxury of typing beyond a third grade speller, with its temperamental spell check and general lack of participation when I try to go fix the errors I actually do see. (I guess it is time to go visit the genius bar. I just hope I don't need a translator for whatever it is they are trying to tell me, or for what I am trying to convey to them, as I am sure there will be no mishaps in the glowing walls of Apple land.)

So where was I? Aside from procrastinating. Oh, that is exactly where I was. I decided to make the spare bedroom my time out/writing space. I thought it counted as "working on the book". We have an old eMac up in that room that has no internet, but does have wordprocessing programs. I had to move some furniture around though to make sure the space the computer was sitting on was roomy enough. I also wanted to make sure I wouldn't get distracted by the elliptical...(yeah, that's funny!) I had to declutter a bit, or a lot. Then there was the matter of moving the documents onto that computer. To expedite the process, I put the in-house AV club on the case, but he thought a flash drive would be quicker than firing up the external hard drive. He was probably right, provided we could find just one of the three flash drives that are usually laying around. The son said his was in his pencil case, as he had just seen it there that morning. No luck. (We found it on his nightstand when he went to bed.) He also said he preferred that I not open the Darth Vader one he got for Christmas. The daughter said she gave hers back to me when she was done with it. I was only up for a minor cabinet search, and the junk drawer yielded nothing either. Knowing time was of the essence before the tech crew would wander off, I asked him to please just use the hard drive thing. That thing...the one that is always in the computer desk cabinet, but had sprouted legs and walked off...yes, that one. Two search parties went out looking in all of the logical places. As soon as the husband had ambled towards the television, and past the point of no return, I remembered where the item had been stashed/housed in a very organized manner. I was bound and determined to finish this one small task, so I loaded up the two nanowrimo documents from 2010 and 2011 (and hoped the editing fairies had shone their light upon them). Then I went upstairs to load the files onto the old computer, and got the message "That item already exists, would you like to replace it?" You are damn straight I want to replace it! It had just taken me over thirty minutes to get the stars and moon aligned to get that stuff together, and I was not going to entertain the idea that I had already done this before! It was 9:00 p.m. by that point and I had some good television shows to fall asleep in the middle of, so there was no further progress to be made that night.

Enough about me, or at least the me who flounders and flusters. When I first made mention on this blog, of trying to pull off writing a book, the amazing MOV from mothersofbrothers left a comment to email her if I needed any advice (as she had recently self-published a book). I sent a quick thank you, and kept the thought in the back of my head, in hopes that in the near future I would be able to figure out a meaningful question to ask her. This was right after the holidays, and I might've still been trying to air the burnt plastic smell out of my house. This week I finally decided I needed to contact her, but this meant I had to find the post she had commented on, which proved to be no easy task. Another thirty minutes, gone.

I was so excited when I finally found it, that I might have sent some hopped up on Pixie Stix type of email to the poor unsuspecting woman. Her response offered to talk me off the ledge and included her phone number and an invitation to call her the next day. What? Seriously? But she was MOV...she had written a book for goodness sakes! A really great book as a matter of fact. She gave me over an hour of her time, and provided so much incredibly useful information and just general support. (Oh, and we also realized that she is one of the folks who has never received any of my responses to any of her comments--ugh! Embarrassing to look so ungrateful for over a month!)

I may not have made much other progress, but at least now have a really solid understanding of what that effort needs to accomplish. I might still be moving all of those pages of type here and there to various other piles of paperwork that need attention, but MOV (Master Of Vision?) spoke with such pride and enthusiasm that I do know in my heart of hearts that I must and will do this.

Check out mothersofbrothers for some humorous and very creatively written posts. Her book is awesome as well. It is a collection of seventy of her favorite past blog posts, and is available on Amazon.com Go get it!

(Fozzie approves of this message as well!)