Thinning the Herd

Last weekend I looked at my schedule and my mouth fell open. It seemed all I did was work, or think about work. When my husband and I sat down and chatted about it, we realized I needed to get rid of some projects.

Projects come in all shapes and sizes. I really want to put my reverted rights books up online, but I wanted to polish them first. That's a project.

I have some short stories I'd like to put online...but one's not quite finished and the other two need polishing...That's a project.

I wanted to be in a suspense continuity with some friends, but as you all know, a continuity story requires a bible which means all four of us had to come up with a big story that ran through all four books and ... well, that's a project.

Then there are the how-to-write books. Oy. I could talk forever about writing, and have tons of workshops I could turn into books but getting those things polished enough to put up for sale...That's a project.

Add to that my already contracted work for two publishers and I knew some things had to go. But that wasn't just because I didn't want to wake up one day and realize I was in over my head. I knew being distracted by so many irons in the fire could potentially hurt the work that was my bread and butter.

Nobody wants that.

And self-publishing, even my how-to-write stuff (that's mostly done) went off the table.

So today, rather than give you a writing lesson, I'm asking you to take a look at all your projects. Have you spread yourself too thin? Are you giving your projects the "best" of you. The best of your time and attention so that they can be the best that they can be...or are you scatter gunning your energy, not giving your best to anything?

At some point, you have to stop and say...Well, stop. LOL  You don't want a million mediocre works out with editors or self-published on Amazon. You want your best work.

Happy Monday

susan meier