Are you listening...

You know, there are days when maybe I should listen more to what I tell others.

For the last few weeks I've been frantic to get things done before NaNo. The last few days I've barely been able to get any sleep -- the minute I turn off the light I suddenly remember all the things that I meant to do. Vision is top of the list right now, of course. I spent all day working on the upcoming issue, and I don't feel that I'm any closer. I have a glitch in my Excel file and merge for the contracts. I still have articles to edit and I have not even begun to put the issue together yet. That last part really isn't hard once I get all the rest of it done, but I need those contracts to go out! I think I'm going to just have to do them by hand tomorrow. It means more time, but....

But that's not what this was supposed to be about, although in some ways that's exactly what I'm talking about.

I have not yet done the final little bit of work on Ada Nish Pura and printed it off to go out. Instead, I spent all day working on Vision. I wrote close to 4000 words today, but none of it was fiction. It's been like that for about a week -- little bits of fiction shoved in between all the other things, and all along this NaNo is coming! feel over everything I work on.

I love NaNo. I have great fun just setting everything else aside for at least the first week and writing. But I have to have everything caught up in order to do that, and right now it's still looking a bit iffy. Vision, FM, DT -- if I wasn't so new at DT, I'd have the schedule for that down a bit better.

My reading has gone to hell again. It's always the first thing that drops by the wayside when I run out of time. That and the tiny bit of TV I watch. Although, to be honest, I watched the pilot episode to 21 Jump Street tonight. I did it as a purposeful break from the I must get this done! feeling that I've let run my life lately.

Because, well, here's the deal.... Nothing I do is so important that if I don't get it done on time it's really going to matter. I know that and it doesn't bother me. I'm involved in a lot of neat things, and I donate 3/4's of my time to stuff like FM, Vision, Estand -- and even DT won't be paying until I start getting some stuff in production. I like doing the kind of work I do, and spending time with writers.

But I start making it more important than it is sometimes, and that leads to madness.

Writing is the most important thing I do. It may not be what I do best, and it may not be important to the wider world, but in my place writing is my goal. Sometimes I let that get lost, though. Even when I write every day, it doesn't mean that I have committed more than some finger movement to the work. Did I make 1000 words? Good enough.

I've even let the idea of NaNo become more important than the writing part of it. I must have outlines! I must have everything else done and the world must be perfect or else....

Right.

So what is this all about? This is about it being four in the morning and I wasted two whole hours tonight watching the new 21 Jump Street DVD. And I don't care that I should have been working on Vision or the next challenge, or checking to see what's coming up in Back to School or 2YN. I don't even care that the damned Vision stuff is giving me trouble again this month. I don't care. I'll get it done because I always do.

And it's time to remember that I am a writer again, not just a Site Administrator, ezine editor, class instructor, ebook associate publisher, and whatever else there is tagged on to my name these days. I love doing those things. I just need to put writing up at the top again.

Ada Nish Pura should have been out by now. So should Muse for that matter, and there are a couple other novels I have let slide while I worked on everything else.

Time to get my priorities sorted out properly again.

Well, maybe not yet. Maybe after I get Vision done.

And after NaNo.

(grin)