Wow. Wow-Wow.
So, as you know if you’ve been following along, I spent last week in Las Vegas for the WMG Writing Business Masterclass with a host of incredible, amazing people – participants and presenters alike. I have 50 pages of handwritten notes, an action list longer than my arm (which I need to sort through, but soon, once the day job is caught up), and my head is exploding in the most positive way from the learning I did, which was not only professional, but also intensely personal, as well.
One of the key themes that spontaneously developed in the conference was patience, and one of the serendipitous messages the universe has been sending me from multiple directions for the last month is the consistent need to slow the freak down before I break something (like my self).
There’s this real Thing in the indie publishing world, a subtle and rarely-voiced undercurrent that is nevertheless pervasive, that if you’re not succeeding, it’s because you’re not working hard enough. So it was really refreshing, and probably actually sanity-saving, to hear from Big Name Professional Full-time Authors that backing off the accelerator a little bit isn’t going to kill my career, that it’s possible to Do This Thing *without* having monthly or bi-monthly releasing, and while maintaining sensible work habits that don’t involve an early, stress-related death.
It will surprise none of my family or longterm/close friends (and probably most readers here, HA) to know that I needed to hear this. Badly.
I’m back in the thick of things this week at work, and I’m back to having sixty billion things to juggle at any given moment (wow was it nice to spend a whole week being just one person, instead of constantly having to try to be three++), but you know what? I’ll get to them. Or I won’t. Either way, the universe won’t stop. And I’ll be more productive next week if I allow myself to wallow a little this week, if I allow myself to accept that you know what? 12 hours of classes a day for a week plus long-term sleep deprivation from last term plus jet lag means I’m not going to be a whole bunch of productive this week, and that’s okay.
Watch carefully as the world continues to spin.
I’ve also ordered, on the recommendation of someone at the conference who I suspect will end up a dear friend and mentor, the book The One Thing. I have a feeling I’m going to devour it when it arrives, and be whole-heartedly recommending it on the blog. Because sometimes, oftentimes, far more frequently than we imagine, it’s okay to slow down and concentrate on just one thing.
This month, my one thing is catching up on sleep – which also means getting my eating back under control. So my priorities this week are threefold: 1) Make menu plan, so I can stop using vast quantities of mental resources managing what I am and am not allowed to eat through all my intolerances; 2) sleep, for a reasonable amount of time every night, as a point of importance; and 3) mark, because getting my marking done will mean the Day Job is all downhill from here for the rest of the calendar year – once these 3 sets of marking are gone, I’m very nearly home(work) free until the end of March.
If I can fit writing in there, fantastic – especially because the Twinny One and I literally rounded out our Vegas sojourn with a solid four hours in the hotel swimming pool (WITH SHARKS), plotting out the arcs for my next book, and I am so, so excited about it. But if I can’t fit it in, well, this week, that’s okay. Next week? That’s a different story (ha). But this week, I’m giving myself permission to rest, to simplify, and to breathe.
<3 <3 <3
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