There is this list of things I've been running around in my head for the last couple of months, things that I want to do. This isn't the BIG SIGNIFICANT list - it's not a list of things like work for world peace, or get rich and famous, or visit Ireland or clean the basement.
No, this is a list of little, realistically do-able things that I keep meaning to get around to, and never do. And the list gets longer, instead of shorter, and I look at the list (ok, I don't actually LOOK at it, I said it was in my head, didn't I?) and say, "I don't know what to do first!" So I do nothing. And then I feel like crap for doing nothing, absolutely nothing on this list, and then I think to myself, self, what the hell have you been DOING for the last ten months? Because you've gotten NOTHING done.
Here are some of the things on the list. This is the first time they've ever been written down, and maybe that will help.
1. I want to go through all the digital pictures my cousin in Quebec has sent me of her beautiful babies, and put a bunch on a CD and go get it printed out so that Grandma can have pictures to take to church and show off to her friends.
2. A very old friend of mine had a baby in July, and I never thought she'd have a baby, and I can't picture her with a baby, yet I know she will be a wonderful mother, and I want to write her a letter and tell her how wonderful it is that she had a baby and how being a mother is a phenomenal, fantastic, terrifying adventure full of amazing challenges that she will handle just fine.
3. I want to write the novel I started in May, because I know it will be the best thing I've ever written, if I ever get around to writing it. Because it's all there IN MY HEAD, and I just can't seem to get it out of my head and onto the page WHERE IT BELONGS.
4. I want to write this fantastic essay that's rattling around up there in my brain, has been for months, and send it to Reader's Digest, because I know they will love it, and I told the editor there so, and if it never materializes, her suspicion that I'm an unreliable lunatic will be confirmed.
5. I want to prepare and send a package to all the local schools offering my services as a speaker on a number of parenting topics.
6. I want to clean my office, with the vacuum and everything. And paint the door that serves as my desk, because it's getting all worn and chipped, and a good coat of Melamine paint would work wonders.
7. I want to scrapbook some of my Disney stuff from this year and LAST YEAR, because my Disney scrapbook that I got last year has a total of one finished page. ONE.
8. I want to start a neighbourhood book club with my very good friend.
To be fair to myself, I do stuff. Today, I sent three ideas in response to an Invitation to Query. And on Saturday I am going to Books & Breakfast with Diana Gabaldon in London. And Kim is going with me! And I will bring all six of Gabaldon's Outlander books with me, in the hope that she will sign them, and not think I'm a certifiable lunatic. (Ms. Gabaldon, not Kim. Kim knows I'm a lunatic. Yet she still talks to me.)
The list is longer than that, but you get the idea. Just a whole bunch of stuff I keep meaning to get around to, but never do.
I hear you re: #4. I have a whole category of worries that fall into that category. We've got to get us some clones!
Posted by: Ann D | October 28, 2005 at 12:09 PM
And I want to be in the book club that you want to start with your very good friend, but I don't live in your neighborhood.
I also want to start a writers' circle for would-be fiction writers, but I don't know any around here. I am feeling lonely!
Posted by: Ann D | October 28, 2005 at 12:11 PM