Last year, when I took my 6-month break (that became a 12-month break), I had planned to work on a book. I would write a little story and my mother, who has done arts and crafts all her life, would work on the illustrations. This lovely little book would be shared with family and friends. The book should have been done by now … but it’s not. What happened?
Well, first there was a problem with the illustrations. I explained the project to my mother but she had difficulty retaining the information. I walked her through the types of pictures the book would need and she was not seeing my vision. I took part of a chapter I had written and wrote notes about what the drawing should look like, but she was not following what I wanted her to do. It was obvious that I would need to work with her more closely on the illustrations than I initially thought.
Second, there was a problem with writing the story. I became very busy at work. Between work projects that required a little extra time and a mother who had increasing needs, it became a challenge to find “me” time. When I did find the time, I wanted to relax. We also had taken on some knitting projects and those kept us busy through January. Then, I started thinking about looking for a job that would allow me to work from home. As we all know, looking for and applying for jobs is time consuming. Needless to say, the book took a tumble on the priority list.
All this is to say that I only finished two chapters! This is depressing. It’s not going to be a long book, but it needs to have more than two chapters. It wasn’t that I ran out of ideas – I have the book mapped out in my head – it’s just that I ran out of energy. With all of my other obligations, the book became work and I lost interest … temporarily.
My plan is to start the book again in the fall, once I finish my current to-do list. I have a fairly long list of tasks that I need to finish and once those are done, then I can work on the book. I think it should only take a couple of months to finish the tasks. Some tasks will only take a couple of hours and others a bit longer, but if I stick to the list, I can get them done. One of the things on the list is developing a stash of blog posts or, at least, the beginnings of blog posts. Maintaining a blog is an ongoing activity, but it is also very enjoyable and helpful as I process what is going on in my life.
The book will be finished, but I’m not stressing about it. I’ve learned the hard way that stressing about things takes all the fun out of doing them and slightly tarnishes the glow of achievement.
my mother, my cat and me 