It's Okay if You Get Sidetracked. Just Re:Focus.

I know it’s been forever since I posted. But I’ve still been journaling on an almost daily basis. Here’s an entry for your enjoyment, and possibly amusement. Don’t judge me, lol.
There’s stuff that's a lot more crazier than this in those pages. :)

Image  ©Helen H. David

Well, I just commented on a blog. May not seem like such a big accomplishment, but it is for me. I did something on my checklist. That's great progress for my ADD self that finds it really hard to join in on a conversation. I'm a pretty quiet person around people I don't know. I usually don't talk at all. I'm too busy observing. But I digress... 

Back to leaving the comment. I haven't done that in more than a year. And I was so ashamed that I haven't posted anything to this blog in so long, I wouldn't even put a link to it in my comment. Sigh. I only made that checklist last week. I love my blog. Really, I do. But seriously, I've got to get on the ball. I can't neglect my writing anymore. Now that Angst and his other half are gone, my life has returned to some sense of normalcy. Thank God. Don't get me wrong. I DO miss them. Some days I miss them terribly. But it's better for all of us this way. Anyway...

The good news is that VACATION from the day job is August 8-12! I'll have a whole week to work at home! WOOT! I've been really busy. I've found some more content sites, and joined two new freelancing groups on LinkedIn. I really like that site, and I've got to network more on there. I've got Google+ now, but I haven't really done anything with that.

Really, the last thing I need is another social network time suck. Seeing as I strongly dislike Facebook, I'm hoping I can use Google+ for my writing. I spend way too much time on the internet (mainly reading Tweets) and not putting words down as it is. And while online I found some videos on YouTube about writing for Demand, and I'm watching them. So I'm still online and not putting very many words down. But, I'm learning about SEO and keywords, and branding and how to use social networking to further my business. So it's not totally unproductive. A writer has to find these things out to be successful. I've been looking at how much domain registration and hosting will cost, and trying to think of a name for my website besides helenhdavid.com. That just sounds so boring to me. 

And I'm working it out in my brain how I can travel and do travel articles and have the writing pay for my traveling. And in the meantime I've been trying failing at Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm supposed to be at, oh, 29k or so today. I'm at 6200 or so. And I'm trying not to beat myself up about it, because that's more fiction than I've written in about eighteen months. I'm still working on the guilt of not doing NaNo last November. Moving TWICE in the thirty days of November is a damn good reason, and I have to keep reminding myself that it's a reason and not an excuse. And when I moved I accidentally packed up my Writer's Planner! I know, right? And I just found it the other day and went and bought ink and printed a new one for the rest of the year. It's the only planner I've ever stuck with for 10 straight months, and I was lost when I didn't have it. Now I can get back on track, and try to find some sense of balance between getting the words down on the page and learning about the writing business as much as possible.

Sometimes I hate the internet because it's such a time suck. It draws me in, and before you know it, I've clicked a hundred links. It's just that there is so much interesting stuff on there! But it's really not the internet's fault. It's my time management. And I'm working on that. No more internet until I get some words down as a warm up when I get home from work. Most days 700-1000 or so words is my usual warm up.

I've had to quit worrying about if Jesus is coming back, if the NWO is going to take us all to the FEMA camps tomorrow, and if Elenin is a meteor or a brown dwarf. And speaking of Elenin, just what the hell is it? And is it going to come between the earth and the sun and give us three days of darkness like it says in the book of Revelation? I don't know. And if it does, there's not a damn thing I can do about it. So why worry about it? Why worry that the banks are going to fail when your balance is $10? Why worry if Michael Jackson is really dead or if he faked is death to get back at the media for crucifying him? Either way, life will still roll on. It's just a waste of mental energy and it ends up affecting me physically. And I can't keep worrying about if there's enough time to make all my dreams come true before Jesus comes back anymore. (I still love Jesus, though. But Buddha saved my sanity. I don’t have to worry about if he’s coming back or not.)

Worrying about things I have no control over is paralyzing me. Even though it’s in my nature to worry, I’ve got to stop. Seriously, I have enough grey hair as it is. I've just got to keep taking those steps. Baby steps they may be, but I've got to keep moving forward.

Like writing more sample articles for the applications to those freelancing sites I found, which I'm going to do this week. I've joined Klout, and it's helping me see what I've been doing wrong in the social network realm, and what I've been doing right. I've been working on my platform for three years. Sometimes I think that's way too long, but I remind myself that I only started thinking about my writing as a business three years ago, and that I've been doing this in my spare time while honing my writing skills. I think I've made progress, but I've also wasted some precious time. Time that I can never get back. I'm going to use my time more wisely. Having my planner will help tremendously with that. Don’t worry that I won’t use it. I made it myself, and it’s amazing! It went through some changes, but it works for me, and that’s what matters. And I’ll use it to block my time to keep my internet addiction under control.
    I've heard that a person will work harder for themselves than they will for anyone else. I'm willing to do that to make this dream come true. I don't want to get rich. If that happens, then great! But I just want my writing to pay my bills and have some left over for a change. I don't want my picture beside the definition of "starving artist" in the dictionary. And I don't think that's too much to ask.
     And my biggest dream is that I want my writing to change the world. It's already changed me. And if it is a blessing to just one person, I've done a bang up job. If it blesses hundreds, well that's wonderful. If more, then YAY! But I've got to do it. I have no other choice. Seriously, there are other writers in my family. I think it's in the DNA or something. It has to be. Because...

You had me at "Write."