Have you ever had so much on your mind–so much that you are enthusiastic about that you’re having trouble figuring out where to start first?
That is me lately. I have been
- Working on my soap company. All I need are labels and photos and I can open for business!
- I am taking pre-orders, especially for my pumpkin spice soap.
- I have so many ideas for this soapy business, and I can’t wait to implement them.
- Slowly but surely drafting a new novel.
- Working with a beta reader to improve last year’s novel so I can send it to an agent.
- Crafting a new website, because I am finally giving that freelance writing thing another go.
- Seriously, if you need anything written, give me a holler. I’m for hire.
- Thinking a lot about the intersection of health and fitness and feminism, and especially what that means for me as a plus-sized woman who has always wanted to run far, ride my bike anywhere, and just generally kick ass.
- Considering doing health coach training so I can write about the above with more authority.
- Trying to figure out where I would write about all of that. Probably not here or on the other blog. I was thinking maybe on medium.com?
- Preparing myself to have another baby.
- Reading really stupid romance novels, and entertaining the idea of writing humorous/feminist reviews of them somewhere, because damn, so many are overtly sexist, homophobic, racist, and full of insecure women with zero self-awareness that these books are definitely not sexy.
- But then I think if I want to publish romances with confident women, who don’t take shit from overly-muscular men who are constantly growling, “You’re mine!” maybe I shouldn’t make fun of the ones who do?
- But really, can we please stop pretending these things are sexy? It’s terrifying.
- But then I think if I want to publish romances with confident women, who don’t take shit from overly-muscular men who are constantly growling, “You’re mine!” maybe I shouldn’t make fun of the ones who do?
I am well aware that this is far too much for any one person to accomplish in any reasonable amount of time. And yet I’m not convinced it’s not doable, even with a newborn in my future, because I’m not giving myself a time limit. I’m doing the things that bring me joy with the hopes that I can eventually finagle myself a career out of the mix. Because I am sick of being afraid that I really can’t do it.
The fear that I’m not clever or quick enough to accomplish any of this has lingered since I was finishing up my degree. I wasn’t writing as quickly or confidently as some of my classmates, and I was frustrated with the quality of my work. I was however working 40+ hours a week and barely scraping by, getting very little sleep, not eating very well. Taking a nap was my version of taking time for myself, but it was more like crashing and burning.
No wonder I was having trouble.
I’ve learned to give myself more of a break since then (that’s where the trashy romances come in). I’ve also figured out that the fastest way to shut down my writing mojo is to think that I can’t. If I ask myself instead, “How can I write about this?” the ideas come-a-flowin.
My only trouble now is working out when to do all of the actual writing.
Minor detail. I’ll work it out.
What do you wish you had more time for? Talk to me about it in the comments.