Managing the schedule seems to be the theme of my return to the States. I'm trying to coordinate my return to Italy, double timed, while also trying to hang out with friends and shop for Christmas gifts. (Hint: I haven't shopped for Christmas gifts yet.)
I would say it's hard to take some time out and look back, but it's not. Slowing down is the easy part. Speeding up again is what's hard. I started this blog on the idea that I'd hammer out my commitments and figure out the schedule later and so far, it's worked. I mean, more followers would be nice, but my place is not to bemoan how few people have this thing on their Google Reader or whatever. My place is to write interesting things, on time, and according to a schedule. I've done that and there's been fifty so far, three a week, usually on time.
I might have cheated with the night I went to the Bane gig and came back (posted at about 3 a.m. Rome time), but I would like to think everybody cheats at some point. Also: With the exception of Emmy's update (former Overkill writers get together to jam on one of my main riffs in Overkill is a great feeling), this has been a pretty solitary project. Which, again, I'm not complaining. I could use a chorus of other voices, for sure, but that, at least for three months, this has been a success. Whether I can keep it going for a year or not is, oddly enough, up to me and no one else.
Which isn't as scary as I thought it would be. But it's another thing on the schedule to manage. I was re-reading my diary from, God, 30ish months ago now and one of the things I knew I had trouble with and didn't do was sticking to a schedule and doing work/writing in advance of a deadline and not right before. The problem, as any procrastinator knows, is not that procrastination doesn't work, but that it does. There is a spark borne of terror and it is a more reliable spark (or at least one that's easier to start) than the spark of sitting down a week or so out and trying to bite off a little chunk of the project.
I can look at today, though, and say, honestly, that I have kept a schedule for three months. It's not epic or earth-shattering. No presses ought to be held, but the next goal is clear: 100.
(Well, 51 is the more immediate goal. To 51!)
Why Barlights by fun.? Because I like the song and I'm going drinking with my friends for the first time since I've been back in...huh...less than an hour and a half. (I'm not even home!) Better get going then. Ta!
I would say it's hard to take some time out and look back, but it's not. Slowing down is the easy part. Speeding up again is what's hard. I started this blog on the idea that I'd hammer out my commitments and figure out the schedule later and so far, it's worked. I mean, more followers would be nice, but my place is not to bemoan how few people have this thing on their Google Reader or whatever. My place is to write interesting things, on time, and according to a schedule. I've done that and there's been fifty so far, three a week, usually on time.
I might have cheated with the night I went to the Bane gig and came back (posted at about 3 a.m. Rome time), but I would like to think everybody cheats at some point. Also: With the exception of Emmy's update (former Overkill writers get together to jam on one of my main riffs in Overkill is a great feeling), this has been a pretty solitary project. Which, again, I'm not complaining. I could use a chorus of other voices, for sure, but that, at least for three months, this has been a success. Whether I can keep it going for a year or not is, oddly enough, up to me and no one else.
Which isn't as scary as I thought it would be. But it's another thing on the schedule to manage. I was re-reading my diary from, God, 30ish months ago now and one of the things I knew I had trouble with and didn't do was sticking to a schedule and doing work/writing in advance of a deadline and not right before. The problem, as any procrastinator knows, is not that procrastination doesn't work, but that it does. There is a spark borne of terror and it is a more reliable spark (or at least one that's easier to start) than the spark of sitting down a week or so out and trying to bite off a little chunk of the project.
I can look at today, though, and say, honestly, that I have kept a schedule for three months. It's not epic or earth-shattering. No presses ought to be held, but the next goal is clear: 100.
(Well, 51 is the more immediate goal. To 51!)
Why Barlights by fun.? Because I like the song and I'm going drinking with my friends for the first time since I've been back in...huh...less than an hour and a half. (I'm not even home!) Better get going then. Ta!
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