November is done. I came to the end of National Novel Writing Month with just over 50K words written in MOONSTRUCK MAFIA: BOSTON. My goal is to get finished by the end of the year so it can get edited, proofed, formatted and uploaded right after the first of the year. Not sure that will happen because…damndang. This sucker is turning out to be a complicated–and long–story. I may have to shift some long and short-range goals before all is said and done. Which brings me to today’s message from the Universe.
Enjoying short-term pleasures at the expense of long-term dreams is just about as silly as pursuing long-term dreams at the expense of short-term pleasures.
Silver, pursue both.
I do,
The Universe
©www.tut.com
Kind of like, have your cake, Silver, and eat it too.
I like cake! Having it and eating it. And pie. Cookies. Brownies. Ice cream. Ahem. I digress. Change the word pleasures to the word tasks and dreams with projects and you have my topic for today’s essay on writing. This is especially true in self-publishers but it also applies to traditionally published authors too. See, writing and putting a book out into the world is a process. Writing, editing, revisions, proofs. All of that takes time and there’s often periods of inactivity between each step. Experienced writers put that time to good use. They start the next project. And the next. And so on. It’s like being on a hamster wheel but not quite as boring or as exhausting physically. 😉 My ponit is, writers need to have both short and long term goals and they should learn to mesh those goals so that tasks become pleasures and projects become fulfilled dreams. Right? Let’s get out there and work on those pleasures and dreams!
So, tell me. If you going to have your cake and eat it too, what kind of cake? Me? I’m kinda craving a chocolate cake with rocky road icing.
Silver James 
CAKE!
Ahem… got distracted a bit there. I don’t know if I’d call them goals exactly anymore. I had goals at the beginning of the year, but those pretty much fell apart. Now? I hope to finish this fantasy and then get back to work on the next Duke Noble.
Short term pleasures and long term dreams… They’re all lost in the act of trying to keep my head above the waves. I feel like I’m so busy treading water I don’t have the brain space to think about much else.
It’s so easy to get overwhelmed. I totally get where you are. I’ve been doing that a lot this year. I’m good at treading water but dammit, I’m ready to start swimming again, even if it’s just a dog paddle. NaNo helped remind me that I can and SHOULD write every day, even if it’s only a 1000 words (or less) because there will be those days where I crest a wave and can body surf for 3K words that go round.
No go eat some cake. We gotta fortify for the tasks at hand, yeah? 😉