{"id":749,"date":"2012-04-26T12:18:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T16:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2012-04-26T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T16:18:07","slug":"personalwriting-suck-it-up-buttercup-or-the-need-to-stop-looking-for-excuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"(personal\/writing) Suck it up, buttercup (or the need to stop looking for excuses)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t posted much lately.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t really been writing, either &#8211; I&#8217;ve been stupidly busy, but that&#8217;s not an excuse.\u00a0 I was listening to Nathan Lowell&#8217;s excellent #tommw podcast (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nathanlowell.org\/tommw\/\">http:\/\/www.nathanlowell.org\/tommw\/<\/a>) and he talked recently about not making excuses for why he wasn&#8217;t writing &#8211; the fact that he had to stop doing that and just write already.\u00a0 Which really hit home for me, because in fact, that&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;ve been doing as well: making excuses for why I wasn&#8217;t writing rather than just sucking it up and writing.<\/p>\n<p>I hurt today.\u00a0 I have a treatment Tuesday, and today when my alarm went off, the first thing that I realized was how much I hurt.\u00a0 My hands are so painful that I had to have my friend who sits next to me at work open the aspirin bottle.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought seriously of staying home and sleeping the day away, because sleeping was the only time I didn&#8217;t hurt.\u00a0 But I didn&#8217;t.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t go to the gym as planned, but I got up after another hour, and went to work.\u00a0 I registered my car.\u00a0 I even got the trash out of the bathroom before I left (although dinner didn&#8217;t happen &#8211; just the thought of chopping anything made me want to cry), and I am currently at work.\u00a0 On the way in, I listened to Nathan and realized how many excuses I had made in the past week not to do things.<\/p>\n<p>Life happens.\u00a0 Shit happens.\u00a0 We&#8217;re all busy &#8211; and there are times when we all hurt.\u00a0 I have a chronic illness, but so do millions of other people who manage to get shit done.\u00a0 It&#8217;s time to, as my buddy Bob is fond of saying, &#8220;Suck it up, buttercup.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Balticon is in a little over 4 weeks.\u00a0 I have two events that I need to prep for there: the <em>Spells and Swashbucklers<\/em>\u00a0launch party (pirates! rum! swag!) and the Needleworker&#8217;s Tea.\u00a0 I need to find out if Dragonmoon Press has a table.\u00a0 I also have to practice my lines for the podcast I&#8217;m in, and finish my garb for the event.\u00a0 I have to find a site for Harper&#8217;s Retreat in September.\u00a0 I have to find a house for my hubby and I to move into (luckily, the timeline on that is flexible).<\/p>\n<p>I also have books to write.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve got some deadlines for myself: <em>Tales of the Scorned Lady<\/em> WILL be finished by August, and the plot outline for <em>Forgotten<\/em> will be done before Balticon.\u00a0 I also realized where the murder mystery needs to start, and I want that outline done for NaNo, so I can write it then.\u00a0 I have a beta read to do this weekend, and I&#8217;m going to have it done.\u00a0 And in the next few months, I&#8217;ll be redesigning the website (yeah, I&#8217;m still not happy with it).<\/p>\n<p>Life is busy.\u00a0 Life is painful.\u00a0 Life happens.\u00a0 I won&#8217;t let that be an excuse for me not to be writing any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t posted much lately.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t really been writing, either &#8211; I&#8217;ve been stupidly busy, but that&#8217;s not an excuse.\u00a0 I was listening to Nathan Lowell&#8217;s excellent #tommw podcast (http:\/\/www.nathanlowell.org\/tommw\/) and he talked recently about not making excuses for why he wasn&#8217;t writing &#8211; the fact that he had to stop doing that and &#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=749\">>>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,35,23,9,12,16,20,17,22],"tags":[71,67,7,58,60,33,62,66],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-con-schedule","category-forgotten","category-goals","category-nanowrimo","category-personal","category-spells-and-swashbucklers","category-tales-of-the-scorned-lady","category-website-stuff","category-writing","tag-forgotten","tag-goals","tag-life","tag-nanowrimo","tag-personal","tag-sca","tag-spells-and-swashbucklers","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}