Putting life on slo-mo may sound easy-peasy, but if you know
me, you know slowing down is not my strong suit.
The last two years have been a whirlwind of working with
editors, rewriting, revising, proofreading, learning book design, self-publishing,
social networking, book marketing, and in less than nine months publishing PEACE BY PIECE and CAPE MAYBE. Oh, and in between, I left one job and started another,
because writing is NOT my day job, it’s my “hobby.”
To say I’ve spent more than a few days on fast-forward is an
understatement, but Carol on fast-forward is nothing new. It hit me that it
might be time to pause and take stock when I noticed others viewed CAPE MAYBE’S publication as a huge accomplishment while I treated it
as one more thing checked off my long to-do list with so much more to do!
It reminds me of a time about 20 years ago when I was a
Human Resources Director in a four person H.R. Department. We were simultaneously
doing the due diligence for a merger, closing one pension plan and creating
another, installing a new payroll system, going through our annual employee
benefits open enrollment—and all while our benefits coordinator was on leave.
At a staff meeting the day after our near flawless payroll go-live, I said
something like, “Go-live yesterday was almost perfect which means today we
shift gears and focus full-force on the open-enrollment deadline, auditing the
pension plan, blah, blah, blah . . .”
My secretary meekly waved her hand, asking if instead of
diving head first into the next projects, we could take a one day breather and celebrate
bringing up a new payroll system and
everyone getting paid right.
See? Carol on fast-forward—nothing new.
So, just for today--and if Jim has his way, tomorrow, and the
next day(s)--I’m trying to put my over-achieving-self on pause.
It has been more than half my lifetime since the first time
I said out loud that I wanted to write a book.
Just for today, I will try
to pause and bask in the realization that after 15 years of writing and
rewriting, in the last nine months, I have finished and published TWO!
