Now What?

An old blog post from the past reminds me to continually refocus on my Plan A.

I recently came across an old blog post I wrote on January 3, 2011. I’m sharing it because it still applies for me. Maybe it applies for you, too. I think it’s a good message as we begin the new year. You can read it down below, with my 2025 commentary.

I don’t know about you, but I have to keep reminding myself to focus on my Plan A—the life I want for myself. I find myself sidetracked again and again by a Plan B made up of all the things I think I have to do before I can start living my Plan A life. Reading this old post was a reminder that I’ve come a long way in the past 14 years. But it was also a reminder that I have to continue to be mindful about putting the important things first—my family, my health, and my writing.

The 2025 commentary is in footnotes. Here’s a little trick I learned from my fellow footnote lover Benjamin Dreyer: to read the commentary, hover over the footnote number, and the footnote text will magically appear in a pop-up window—you don’t have to click on the footnotes and go back and forth between them and the body text. Or, if you do click on the footnote number, you can click on it again in the footnote and it will take you back to your place in the post.

Original Post from 1/03/2011:

Yesterday was the first Sunday of the new year.

After setting up this blog/journal and writing my first entry, I spent the afternoon catching up on my classic movie viewing, warm and cozy indoors while a rainstorm fell outside.

First, I watched Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand’s first motion picture, which was airing on the Turner Classic Movie channel.  Then, anxious to see what would happen next, and feeling fortunate to live in the modern age of technology, I turned on my Wii, selected the Netflix channel, and watched Funny Lady.¹

This may seem like just another wasted day to some, but while I’ve been busy chasing Plan B, I’ve missed out on many a lazy Sunday afternoon.²

I’ve also missed out on a lot of other things, like great films, great food, great books – things that stir my artistic soul, knock the dust off my right brain and help me to begin thinking like a writer again.³

Last night, though, determined to take that first step, and mindful of Tony Robbins’s advice to take some action toward your goal each day, however small, I brought out my brand new 2011 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market, turned to the contest pages, and picked a short fiction writing contest to enter so I’d have a precise goal and deadline to work toward.⁴

Today it’s Monday, and I’m back at work. I’m writing this on my lunch hour.⁵

I do have a day job, so what I’ve freed up for writing are my early mornings, lunch hours, evenings and weekends.  Now comes the task of actually using those precious hours to write.⁶

I’m no Danielle Steele. That woman wrote about a bazillion books late into the night and in the early hours of the morning, all while raising a half dozen children. God bless her, but I just don’t have that kind of fortitude.⁷

Or do I?⁸

While the idea of working full-time and squeezing writing into my off hours has always seemed too daunting to me, the truth is, I’ve consistently spent many of my late nights, early mornings, lunch hours and weekends working like mad on one project after another, ironically all with the idea that I’d eventually be able to buy myself the time to write. There’s obviously something sinister at work here.⁹

It’s time to take a sledgehammer to what amounts to a life-long case of writer’s block.¹⁰

First step:  Dust off one of the many short stories I’ve abandoned over the years, make it shiny and new, and enter it into a writing contest.¹¹

Deadline:  February 28th.¹²

1. This was around the time Netflix made us choose between getting DVDs in the mail or some prehistoric version of streaming. I do not remember ever using my old Nintendo Wii to watch movies on Netflix, but I guess I did. I got rid of it at least 10 years ago, but now I’m missing it! Especially the balance test, which I used to be great at, but I’m wondering how I’d fare these days.

2. I still have to work hard at not working on the weekends. This was one of my 2024 goals, but I didn’t do a great job at meeting it.

3. This sentence was written before I knew what an em dash was and before I was converted to the Oxford comma in about 2016.

4. Wow. This was written when I was still a fan of Tony Robbins and when we still used that lovely, thick, paperback Writer’s Market to find places to submit our work to. Remember those? I loved buying the new edition each year and leafing through it, releasing that new book smell into the air. Online submissions are fantastic, but they’re not as romantic. This brought back some tactile memories. :)

5. Update: I’m still working at that day job, but I hope to retire and focus on writing and book coaching full-time in another couple of years.

6. I’ve gotten much better about that. I now give myself the best part of my day (early mornings) for writing.

7. I’m not as impressed with Danielle Steele as I used to be. The woman doesn’t read!

8. Spoiler alert: I do.

9. I still have a lot going on, including a day job, a book coaching business, and volunteer work. But giving myself that first part of every morning for what’s really important to me has made all the difference toward building a writing career.

10. It’s amazing what some mindset shifts can do. Mindset Shift #1: I no longer look at writing as dessert or an indulgence. I now look at it as an essential part of who I am and who I was meant to be. Mindset Shift #2: I no longer squeeze writing in “when I have the time.” I set aside the first part of my mornings for writing.

11. I finally won the grand prize in a short story contest in 2023, for my story “Trees.”

12. I don’t remember if I met this deadline or not, but I do know I’ve made a lot of progress since January 3, 2011. Here’s to going for our dreams in 2025—happy New Year!