Ever notice how life can be smooth sailing for weeks on end … and then, all of a sudden, it’s really really not? Or how things can be very quiet, writing assignments slow to come in, days are leisurely with lots of time for HGTV-watching and then — BAM! Life is hectic, email inbox is flooded and I have more work than I can handle. (Almost!)
That’s been me this May. In addition to juggling the usual end-of-the-year stuff for my girls and scheduling out our always-hectic summer, I just finished two freelance writing assignments and am sitting on four more. That’s pretty much unprecedented for me. But I’m not complaining! Not by a longshot!
(Click here if you are interested in the article I did on the Civic Symphony of Green Bay. It’s on page 10.)
I’m pretty sure that I’ve brought a lot of this stress upon myself by self-imposing deadlines of “Everything’s got to get done before the girls are out of school.” And that is where the T-minus eight days comes from. This includes, quite illogically, conducting telephone interviews for stories that aren’t due until August and cleaning out a storage closet for which the doors still easily close. The rational side of my brain is saying that if the carpets don’t get scrubbed before June 9, I’m pretty sure I’m going to find an afternoon this summer to cross that chore of my “to-do” list. But the irrational side of my brain is counting down the days until summer vacation and leaping into full-blown panic mode.
So here I sit.
Instead of freaking out, I’m taking a minute to just write and reassure myself that yes, all the “to-do” items are going to get done eventually. And if they don’t, then they probably didn’t need to be “to-do” items in the first place. T-minus eight days? No worries. I totally got this.
In other news, Green Bay Area Moms Blog published today my ode to prioritizing marriage over parenting. Fingers crossed this will get picked up by some other cities. And super exciting — my query for FINDING SETH made the cut and is entered into #QueryKombat — a Twitter contest that helps unagented authors tweak their proposal materials and gives them unprecedented exposure to seasoned veterans of the publishing world. Score! Fingers crossed that I make it through at least the first round. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for reading along!