So hard that I’m even stealing titles from my own blog because my brain is feeling tapped.
Well not really. In actuality my brain is feeling fuzzy. I’m stuck in a weird place trying to kick my own ass into writing and I keep being distracted. Fighting distractions is one of my biggest problems.
Ooh look! There’s a kitty! There’s Twitter! OkC! There’s an orgasm waiting to be had!
I don’t know how to reward myself with fun social media time and instead just spend my time on it. Rather than save a friends’ holiday photos for after I’m done my work, I’ll interrupt my writing – mid sentence – to travel to a distant land, virtually.
I am a virtual tourist stalker with undiagnosed ADD.
I think part of my distraction frustration is a lack of direction. At my last job I owned a lot of things and made decisions based on my experience. In this situation, I have no experience. I don’t know if I should be self-publishing, finding a publisher, finding an agent, writing a newsletter, finishing the book first, or printing my business cards. There is nothing that tells me what the right step is and after hours and hours and hours of internet research on all of the above, the best I can come up with is “Do what’s in your heart.”
What the fuck, Samantha! Do what’s in your heart? That’s not helping me at ALL.
Really it’s not. What’s in my heart is to sit and finish the book. Spend hours a day writing it and just push on through. Then when I research publishing options, I find out that some publishers often take up to six months to get back to you and that could be with a rejection letter. So logic would then tell me to find publishers first and send off my proposal that I have sitting here. Ready. Waiting. Scared to send itself for fear of failure.
Or perhaps fear of success.
A few weeks ago I spent hours agonizing over something that a publisher’s website said, looking for a resumé with all submissions. I don’t have a writing resumé – outside of this blog I’ve done a guest post here or there. Is that what they mean? Why won’t you tell me? You don’t know? Well shit, I don’t know!
Then Steph came home and I talked about it with him. Ok, more like I talked AT him, but he was still there and (hopefully) paying attention. Talking it through helped me decide what to do and it took 10 minutes. Maybe I need to start talking to myself in the mirror. Or maybe I should just ask the cats? They don’t really need to reply, I just need a sounding board. Does that make me a crazy cat lady?
While you’re thinking about the answer to that question, here’s a cute picture of two of my kitties.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, distraction. Evil, evil distraction.
What I really need is a life coach. And it’s funny that I’m trying to be a life and relationship coach myself. I am just a classic example of someone who can help others but cannot help herself. Trust me. I’m a good coach, I promise I am. You can even get a free trial session from me if you want to see that for yourself I’ll meet you for coffee and we can discuss whatever you … ooh, do you see the cute top that girl’s wearing?
It’s also hard to focus because I have a lot on the horizon so I don’t know what to pick. Again, the direction thing comes into play and is really starting to zap my confidence. Here’s a list of things I want to and / or plan on accomplish(ing):
- A series of Open Relationship workshops at Lucky You on Dundas West. So far the plan is to do a 101 general workshop followed by 201 and 301 focusing on effective communication and jealousy / issues. Fingers crossed these are starting in September. They’ll be $35 each, with a discount if you purchase more than one. Which reminds me, I need to write up the description and send it over.
- A newsletter – I promised people I’d write one, and I think it’s a good way to keep myself on task. Though it doesn’t give me any financial return, I think it might be a way to stay in touch with my fans (I have fans?) outside of Twitter and send them relevant updates
- Finishing the book of course and finding a lovely, sweet publisher to share it with the masses. Oh dear sweet publisher, you are out there somewhere, aren’t you?
- A writing piece on modern marriage for Filament magazine.
- More video diaries for the documentary we’re in. (right now I’ve barely done any.)
- Attending Poly Pride in NYC this October.
- Plan a conference on sex and relationships in Toronto next year. I don’t know if this is feasible but it’s something that I think this city, country even is lacking. I see so many great things happening across the US and I think we need to find a focus up here. Maybe I’ll ask my mentor what the focus of that conference should be!
Oh right … they’re a cat.
It’s also made harder when I hear that the situation at my last job has improved. The people are happier and things seem to be moving along ok. Of course I’m really happy for my old coworkers and the new guy that took my old job but on those days when I’m thinking of my disappearing bank balance and feeling very unsure of my decision to take this on and try to be successful at I don’t even know what, it’s hard. It makes me mad that it couldn’t have gotten better while I was there. Maybe I would’ve stayed. I don’t know if I would have been able to finish the book while there, but I’d have had a steady paycheque.
Is that what matters? Most of the time I don’t think so, but then I see people with careers that they love and I wonder … what happened to me? Where did I go wrong?
Maybe I’m just behind the times, and finishing this book, getting into educating and possibly planning this conference IS where I’m supposed to be. Maybe people will think I’m smart and want me to speak about polyamory or cats or I don’t know, the Hitachi magic wand and what it can do for vagina.
So if you have any words of wisdom on book publishing or what you think I should do, I’m all ears. ALSO if you want to hire me to write for you, duh of course I’m interested in talking about that. It’s another distraction.
And in all seriousness, I am actually an ok coach and am more than happy to discuss your life. You can visit my website at www.samanthafraser.com.
Might as well keep life on track, even if it’s someone else’s.
