Living Here or Over There? Maybe it's Boredom. P is for Planning: Part 2

I see my future so clear in my head and make the mistake of living there rather than living here, in the present. I close my eyes to the present because I hate a particular situation and don’t want to deal with it. I wait for time to wreak its destruction on the present as it relentlessly pushes forward to the future. And lo and behold, time performs its job wonderfully. And yet, time frightens me. I have to be on my toes. I can’t blink, take a breather, or sit one place and think and think, my favorite pastime. Thinking. I do it too often. Or I think of nothing. I focus on emptiness. It’s nothing sophisticated like meditation but rather I stop the flow of endless thoughts, worries, and voices in my head that disturb my peace and cause anguish to my soul. I breathe. I can make a choice. I can live over there where it’s perfect in my mind and all the components making up a difficult situation disappear. But, like all choices, consequences lurk close by and wait for the right time to attack. Some don’t have to wait long; others can see years before they strike.

It looks nice now...

Living in the perfect future means abandoning my present, abandoning my life right now.   Walking zombie, anyone? Fake smiles, concerted efforts to listen, be present and respond in kind that it meshes into one big mess—all of it becomes a chore until it finally hits: living has become a chore. And that is boredom my friends. Take another breath. Zoom and focus and remember what living is all about. It’s not all about the tasks on the list, the annoyances, the situation, the external, the frustration bursting inside, or all those pieces that work together to tug that big sigh out of you. It’s about the people in life. The connections you create, strengthen, weaken, and destroy. Smile in the middle of it all and everything becomes better. The present is okay. I have to make it okay.

Press the button, already!

SO, what does this have to do with writing? Don’t get trapped in the dream. The hard work gets done in the present, not the future. Let’s check out what I have done for part two for P, Planning.

Continuing from Section 2:

Schedule Your Goal Tasks: Not all tasks are created equal.

·      Here’s a list of the important tasks needed to achieve my goal:

o   Writing 1600-2000 words/day

o   Editing one scene/day

o   Blogging M-Th

o   Staying in touch with other blogs (20-25/day)

o   50 tweets/day on my writer twitter account
o  Honing my craft- research on improving my writing, book, marketing, traditional and non-traditional avenues for publishing
o  Reviewing grammar and writing tools

o   As important as these tasks are, some deserve more of my time than others (i.e. writing 1600-2000 words/day and editing scenes and blogging). However, since these things are clearly the hardest to perform, it’s easy to fall into the habit of doing the lesser, but easier tasks, which pile together to eat away time that could have been spent on high priority tasks. Or I regularly do one of the harder, high priority tasks and neglect others that are equally as important. For instance, I feel like I’m blogging more than writing and editing my novel. That needs to change soon! Determining priorities and avoiding time-wasters are an essential component to having my ultimate goals realized.

That’s all for today, folks!

Thanks for reading,

CSS :)

A Resuscitation is in Order!

HI :)

Never thought I'd update this blog, did you? It took more than a year, but I am back. This time I've dropped the pseudo-name Sammy Suzuhara. Call me CS. Severe is my real last name and I haven't given it enough credit for its radness. I am still working on Children of Tokua, the new name of this blog. This book has haunted me for seventeen years and finally, finally---no, I really mean it this time-- FINALLY, I am going to produce a finished product. I've made some serious changes that has revitalized the book, along with my interest in writing it.

Before I give you any details of what those major changes are, I want to share with you one essential process that I had to undergo to finish COT. Desire and motivation are very important when writing a book, without them, the thing never gets done. And this is true about any major project in our lives. I've been focused these past few weeks on raising my self-consciousness and performing some deep introspection. I had many obstacles to writing COT but I never dived deep into figuring out what they were. I assumed I was a chronic procrastinator, lazy, not disciplined, etc. And then sometime last week, I haphazardly visited this website called Personal Excellence after listening to a list of inspirational music which I arrived at through listening to Susan Boyle's rendition "I Dreamed a Dream" (Can't get enough of that song! Yes, I know it's a depressing song but it nonetheless inspires me, haha). I highly recommend the Personal Excellence website because it pretty much helped change my attitude toward COT.

I decided to read one of the articles on procrastination and did a self-introspection exercise to understand more deeply why I wasn't actively writing COT. My initial free writing produced some common answers such as: "I'm bored with the book. Hate seeing the same thing repeatedly. I'm lazy. Other things in life are getting in the way. Not enough time to truly write. I don't have enough discipline." I then steadily wrote things like: "I'm afraid of rejection. I'm afraid people will hate my book. I don't think I'm a great writer. I won't get anyone to represent the book. My writing isn't as great as I would want it to be." These were the real reasons why I wasn't finishing COT! In other words, I finally admitted to myself that I DIDN'T think I was a great enough writer for the book. This self-defeating thought and belief strangled my writing. I decided at that moment that I would no longer succumb to it. Taking this action breathed new life in my desire and motivation to write. I want to be a published author. I can clearly imagine myself as published author. I love the story of COT. I love the characters. They are my babies! I can't reject them just because of my own limiting thoughts.

So, I liberated myself from such negative thinking and instead embraced my capacity to write a story my heart desired.

And on the note of discipline, I realized from Personal Excellence, I didn't need discipline to write COT. Discipline is getting something you don't like doing done. I love COT so it should not feel like I'm having an uphill struggle writing it. Attitude is so important. Well, folks, that's all for now. I'll let you know how changed COT in my next post!

thanks for reading,
CSS