It's been a month and a half since I posted; "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" seems to have broken me. *lol* That was the hardest of the group to do. I loved that story, wasn't sure why and didn't think I did it justice teasing it apart.
Perfectionism rears its ugly head? Probably.
I'll get back to the short story dissections soon. In the meantime, here are a few of my lessons from the last 90 days:
* Classes keep my interest and motivation going. I signed up for Holly Lisle's "How to Write a Series (Expansion)" course because she's planning on taking the group through a six month, loosely-scheduled course in which she's rewriting and re-taping her teaching materials. I figured I couldn't get six months of motivation and accountability-to-self-and-others that cheaply anywhere else. So far (I'm about three weeks in) it's working.
* I am a cyclical being. Phoenix should be my middle name. Crash and burn is normal. So is rising from the ashes. *sigh*
* I need to be certain that I'm 100 percent behind my own goals. i.e., that I'm being honest with myself about them. That sounds like a no-brainer, but last season I had a huge set of goals I was trying to accomplish in three months. I spent two days making detailed plans so all I'd have to do is check steps off as I went... and stopped working on them after a month and a half. Life happened, but I *allowed* that "life" stuff to stop me, and I don't think that would have happened if I was truly committed to the goals I was trying to reach.
* Writing down what I do accomplish is essential, because I don't remember much of anything I accomplish beyond 24 hours. In that same three-month period, I *did* do many things ... it's just that few of them were on my Grand Plan. Had I not kept track of everything that I was doing, I would have thought I'd laid on the couch for 90 days, and crashed and burned even harder as a result.
* Asking a few basic questions clarifies what I'm thinking a lot. That's the benefit of having colleagues read something you've written, of having friends who'll talk you through your latest relationship snafu, of having a partner to talk through life decisions. Another brain on a problem is rarely a bad thing. It would be nice to be able to set up a way to do that for myself while I'm still in the idea stage to avoid future problems, or at least knock off the worst ones.
How many of those are recurring lessons I keep learning? Oh, all of them. Although the tracking portion is something I've never stopped doing, and the cyclical knowledge is what keeps me going when the world opens up under my feet -- it's happened before, it'll happen again, I just have to keep breathing.
