Tag: Writing

The promises we make to ourselves are often the hardest to keep

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it
Easter Eggs
Easter Eggs (Photo credit: .imelda)

We celebrated Easter over the weekend. My older sister came to visit with her family and we all celebrated with good food, conversation, and bags and bags of candy. I will be honest with you, I wanted to give myself a vacation from writing. What is the good of setting your own schedule if you don’t get to take some time off now and then. I rationalized that I could take a holiday off and no one would notice.

I announced this to my husband. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt my skin begin to crawl. I’ve been writing about execution, accountability, and leadership and here I was talking about shirking from my responsibilities just because it wasn’t convenient. I felt dirty. But the words were out there, all my husband would have to do is say something like “sounds good,” or “you’ve been working hard, a break would do you good,” and the conversation would be over.

He didn’t say either. Instead he just looked at me with a frown and said “you have to. It doesn’t have to be long, but you have to.” He kept me from making one of the worst mistakes – assuming that everyone’s lives were just like my own.

I follow several other blogs. After reading a series of good news stories on one of them, I reached out to the blog’s author. I wanted to know how she had been fortunate enough to find her publisher. She nicely wrote me back that her publisher found her after coming across her blog. Now she has a deal on a trilogy. What if the agent, publisher, bulk book buyer, kindred spirit looking for inspiration, or media mogul of my dreams was surfing the internet and found someone else all because I just didn’t feel like writing today.

English: A milk chocolate Easter Bunny.
English: A milk chocolate Easter Bunny. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Sure I might not know that I had missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime, but it still wouldn’t change the fact that I missed the opportunity to be noticed. And for what? Sixty to ninety minutes and a chocolate bunny?

I’ve read that it is a good idea to detail your posting schedule is on your ABOUT page. I’ve not embraced this idea to date because once you put something in writing, you’ve made a commitment. I don’t like to make promises I can’t keep. But perhaps it is time to do just that.

Over the last six months, I’ve kept promises made to myself. I’ve written on my writing days and spent time with my family on my off days, but perhaps it is now time to make promises to you the reader. Isn’t keeping the promises we rather avoid a major part of Easter?

If you are visiting my blog for the first time, Welcome. I blog mostly about parenthood, entrepreneurship, my inspiration, and writing, and I blog Mondays and Thursdays.

 

Writing
Writing (Photo credit: jjpacres)
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You have to dance like nobody’s watching

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites
Dance like nobody's watching
Dance like nobody’s watching (Photo credit: fmgbain)

Have you had the pleasure of watching the Lego Movie, or heard the What Does The Fox Say song yet? No? Well if you ever found yourself near my house on a Friday night you would hear song, Everything is Awesome and the aforementioned song blasting on our speakers over and over again as my boys engaged in what has become our “beginning of the weekend dance party!”

Dance Floor
Dance Floor (Photo credit: enric archivell)

My eldest son’s dancing consists of jumping, running in a circle, spinning on the floor, and imitating a robot. My youngest is still mastering walking and mostly performs a series of squats and sways while pointing his fingers in the air. I am not even going to attempt to describe the series of movements my husband and I consider our own dancing style, but needless to say we likely won’t be contestants on dancing with the stars anytime soon.

We may be somewhat rhythmically impaired, but it doesn’t stop us from letting loose every weekend. I am going to miss these moments when my boys age into the tween years and are too embarrassed to be seen walking with either my husband or I, let alone be seen dancing with us. The party is going to be over way too soon.

 

Susanna Clark and Robert Leigh penned the following lyrics for their song, “Come from the Heart”

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money,
You’ve got to love like you’ll never get hurt,
You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching,
You’ve got to come from the heart if you want it to work.

These words are proven true over and over again.

Nicolas Cage was recently interviewed about his Oscar-winning performance for Leaving Las Vegas. He said, and I paraphrase, that he was so sure that the film would never been seen that he didn’t worry about what the critics or academy would say, he just committed himself to the role. By not worrying about being watched, he was freed to do something remarkable.

I struggled severely with my first several attempts at writing, not for lack of imagination, but because I was too concerned about forcing my words be best-seller caliber, or at least be quote-worthy. Then I saw a rebroadcasted interview with the late Elmore Leonard, author of dozens of novels.  He repeated his longstanding advice, “If it sounds like writing. Rewrite it.” I realized I just had to start typing, and stop worrying about who was reading. As long as I gave it my all, it would work out in the end like it was supposed to.

If you are reading this, then the process worked, and if you aren’t, well… I’ll still be dancing on Friday.

 

Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured ...
Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Cleaning out the closet and other personal pruning

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

The weather seemed to be finally on the upswing again which meant it was time once again to revisit my closet to ensure that my warmer weather garments were within easy access.

As I looked through the hangers it suddenly hit me that there were still items I had owned years before I had ever met my husband. We celebrated our tenth anniversary last year and didn’t exactly rush through the dating process, so these items could almost be described as vintage!

My husband complains about our closet size. Yes – please note that my husband is the one who thinks we need more space, not me. So why was I holding on to these items which essentially are just taking up space? It is not like I can wear them anymore, they are either too small, too revealing for work or too… err… young (that last one was hard to admit).

Club Belo 80s Fashion show San Diego
Club Belo 80s Fashion show San Diego (Photo credit: Network23 Photography)

I supposed I’ve held on to them for so long out of sentimental purposes. When I was sixteen years old I looked outstanding in them, and I knew it. Putting those garments on was like wearing confidence. I didn’t have bills to pay. My only responsibility was to keep my grades up and occasionally take out the garbage. I wore them during some of my best outings with friends. Getting rid of them now felt the same as admitting that those times were long gone and would never come again.

But, as I hovered in indecision, I had to realize that whether I wanted to admit it or not, time had advanced. I had grown, my friends had changed, and the cloth was not only faded but actually stank a little from lack of exposure to fresh air. If I did magically drop a dress size, I would want to reward myself with a brand new wardrobe, not be forced to wear my own hand-me-downs.

Clothing Donation
Clothing Donation (Photo credit: jazzijava)

As I began to throw the clothing on the growing donation pile, I felt free in a weird way. I still had the memories of those good times, but now I had all this open space that I could fill with something new, not just a poor copy.

How often do we continue to look back at the things we used to do and try to force a repeat just because the product, process, or program one time fit us like a glove? The market changes the same as the fashion industry and our waistline. Sure the trend might come again, but what worked for you or your company’s growing years rarely will still work the same way for you or your company’s established years. Product offerings, processes, and programs should be evaluated just as routinely as clothes in the closet.

How often do we as authors cling to clichés, a scene, or phrase we positively loved writing, but text which serves no useful purpose in the final product? I know all to well how much it hurts to hit the delete key when you have a certain word count goal in mind, but it has to be done. Imagine you have time for gardening. If you want certain plants to grow and bear fruit, you have to occasionally cut away the errant shoots.

There is a saying that nature abhors a vacuum. Provided you create an opening, something new will come around to fill it. It may very well be as good a fit if not better for the person you are today, the business you are trying to grow, or the story you are trying to write, than what you had.

PROGRESS. YOUR SUGGESTION HELPS SPEED THE PROG...

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Applying the flywheel and avoiding the doom loop beyond business

by Allie P., posted in Personal Favorites

Several years ago, I picked up a copy of Jim Collins’ Good to Great, a business reference on why some companies thrive while other companies fail. In it, he made a number of great observations supporting the premises that the enemy of great is not bad, no “Good is the enemy of Great.” He speculates that because we preceive ourselves as being good at something, we can be lulled into acceptance of the status quo rather than incentivized to improve to the point of greatness. At least when we recognize we are downright awful at something we know to either quit altogether or seek additional help. With good, it is too easy to say, ehh.. it is good enough.

His book is really focused on the business world, but as I have embarked down the path of authorship and grown as a parent, I have found that many of his observations and tips for moving away from being just good enough to get by have applications beyond the office.

One of my favorite chapters in the entire book was on the topic of the flywheel and the doom loop. I’ve paraphrased a bit, but the two concepts can be summarized by the following steps:

Tunnels of Time
By fdecomite (Tunnels of Time) via Wikimedia Commons
The Flywheel

  1. Take a step forward consistent with your goal
  2. Verify Results
  3. Cultivate an audience of fans
  4. Build Momentum
  5. Repeat steps 1-4.

The Doom Loop

  1. Receive disappointing results
  2. React to results without understanding why the results were what they were
  3. Over-correct with new direction, new program leader, new event, etc
  4. Lose your audience & fans
  5. Repeat steps 1-4

The concept of the flywheel is simple, by taking small but determined steps according to a plan we grow a network of supporters which therefore makes repeatable success easier as it becomes nearly self-sustaining. A real life example is this: I am not a runner, but was talked into joining my husband on a 5K. I didn’t just show up for the race, I trained for weeks leading up to the event. At first it was just me putting one foot in front of the other. A successful day was merely getting home without walking most of the way. Then my family started to ask about how I was doing and suddenly I felt compelled to force myself to run just a few yards longer than I had the day before. On the day of the race, there were crowds of people shouting encouragement and offering water. I ran the entire way without stopping.

The doom loop is just as easy to understand. One of the bloggers I follow recently wrote of how she just received her first negative review. I can only imagine how devastating that must have been for her after working so hard. She easily could have gone on the defensive and lashed out at the reviewer. She might have caught herself questioning whether or not to continue to pursue her current project. In either case, the reaction could have cost the author her readers all together. Obviously creating a future of additional disappointing results. She did not do either of these things. She stayed clear of the doom loop and is most likely stronger for the experience. I wish her continued success.

I have found that writing in addition to working a day job and parenting is much like training for a race, except that this one is closer to a marathon than my little 5K. I have to pace myself to avoid injury and/or burnout. As long as I keep putting one foot (or in this case – one word) in front of another. Provided I keep watching my steps, I know that there will be someone just up ahead with a cup of cool water shouting encouragement. I will avoid the doom loop. I will finish this race.

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