How many irons are there in your fire?
I found this image at And Today’s Idiom Is…, a blog for non-native English speakers. It strikes me as an excellent excuse for a blog. Meanwhile, I’m trying to remember what my excuse–er, purpose–is.
In 2016 I spent an inordinate amount of time reading helpful books. Books about habits and writing and books about writers and their habits. Books about creativity and eating right, too, and books about parenting teenagers and living with Alzheimer’s. Books such as Peak and You Are a Badass and Fire Up Your Writing Brain.
As an aside, an especially helpful book was The INFJ Writer, by Lauren Sapala. (Her advice applies to any NF, which translates to intuitive-feeling, not just INFJs, and I suspect it may apply to non-writers as well as writers. One message Sapala pushes is, to paraphrase her, “You are not weird. You are just you.”)
In 2016 I used up an inordinate amount of my journal pages (page after page after page) on writing and rewriting my goals (“drilling down,” as one writer put it). Has all of this reading about and scribbling of goals helped? Well, sort of. I hired a piano teacher. I hired a professional organizer to help me declutter (phase two about to be taken on). I lost a little weight. I got my brother to visit my mother (twice). I hung in there with my teenager when the going felt pretty damn tough. I submitted poetry to 50 different venues.
What do I want now?
I want to have fewer irons in the fire.
So how do I reconcile blogging, writing and sending out poems (and compiling a new manuscript), short stories, novels needing reworked or completion…not to mention church committees, occasional teaching gigs, and familial roles?
I have an idea. (It does not necessarily involve either coffee or wine.) I’ll be back with more in a day or so.
Can’t wait to hear your idea! Too many irons in the fire is my problem too. Thanks!
Reading Cheri Huber has also been a revelation — thanks for introducing me to her!
What are you most passionate about, that is what you ask yourself. Writing, so keep that iron, committees are sort of hohum, maybe stop saying yes, Family important. and those wonderful artist dates you helped us learn in class THE ARTIST’S WAY – I think that was year before last. – I think passion is what we all want – passion for whatever we do and love for the work.
Absolutely — say NO to committee work! The Artist’s Way continues to inform my practice. I can’t believe it was two years ago. Thank you for being on the journey with me.