Sigh. Well, so, okay, I guess the bright side is that I haven't bought any cigarettes, which is good, since one of the main reasons I wanted to give up smoking was to cut back on expenses. But the bad news is that I've found, now that Octsoberfest is over and I'm drinking again, that it only takes one drink to lure me back to cigarettes.
The other main reason I wanted to quit smoking is because I didn't want to be addicted anymore, and I can't yet say I'm not addicted. All I can say is that my body has become accustomed to doing without nicotine during the day. But I only have one cigarette left in the stale pack that someone left on the arm of one of the courtyard chairs a couple months ago, and I am committed to not buying any more cigarettes. Gonna do this.
On the plus side, I totally broke through the word count barrier for Digiwrimo! This happened yesterday, when I ended the day at 23,630 words so far for the month, which was 292 words above where I wanted to be. Yay!
"Wait a minute," you might be saying. "Where did all those words come from? I haven't seen that many blog posts." Well you are right: my plans for daily blog posts and Hubs have flown out the window. Many of those words have been in tweets and Facebook status updates/comments/messages. Another big contributor to my word count recently is a new novel I've started. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and so far me and the new novel are getting along really well...it shows no signs of giving up on me anytime soon.
I'm so glad that the Night of Writing Digitally is coming up this weekend. Six hours in the same space as a writing-oriented community *should* give me enough of a lead on word count to make up for the fact I likely won't be writing very much over Thanksgiving weekend.
One of the things I'm discovering about myself as a writer is that my creative writing comes from a place of letting go. I have to give myself permission to focus on myself and notice my thoughts and feelings rather than continuing to crack the whip re: marketing myself. Permission to turn inward rather than focusing all my attention outward on interacting with potential clients or people who might be able to point me to new clients.
If I have any regrets about this first month and a half of my self-employment, it's that I didn't do more creative writing. I have so much in me that I haven't let come out because I haven't been willing to give myself that permission to sit with myself. But I'm not sure it's even a regret. I have to say, I'm proud of all the work I've done this last month and a half. I'm proud of the progress I've made on Twitter, the contacts I've made, the steps I've taken to put myself out there and ask for what I want.
But if I could have let myself relax a bit more, could have devoted at least two hours a day to creative writing and two hours a day to reading, I think I'd be a lot closer to having a shit-ton of publishable or nearly-publishable work, which is more in alignment with my long-term goal of writing for a living.
Which brings me to the question: why is that a long-term goal? Is it because I still lack faith in myself? Or is it because I'm being realistic? No sense crying over spilled milk though. Here I am. The question now is: what am I going to do with the next month and a half? Am I going to continue like I've been doing? Or am I going to give myself permission to write?
I don't want to give the impression that I don't want to edit or teach or do consulting work. I absolutely do. They're all things that I care about. And I suppose I can't be sorry that I've spent this time learning more about how to market myself. But maybe I'm at a point now where I can ease up on the steep learning curve re: how to market myself and instead pay more attention to other things. Like actually doing the writing/editing/teaching/consulting work I want to do. Surely that in itself is good self-marketing? Or not. Sigh. See? I still don't know enough about it.
I'm also gonna go ahead and celebrate the fact that I've done a pretty
damned good job of getting my butt out there and exercising, and I've
also cut back on eating...not like in an intentional, starve-yourself
kind of way. I've just found that I'm getting better at stopping when
I'm no longer hungry and letting that suffice. And I'm doing less
snacking in addition to eating more reasonable portions of food.
How's that for a bunch of disconnected, super imperfect, shut-up-and-get-it-out-there drivel? Aw yeah.
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