I have properly identified and named a character flaw, a quirk that I consider a remnant of procrastination. For the most part, I am not a procrastinator. If you assign me a task, give me a deadline and attach a grade that rewards or punishes, you motivate me effectively. If I am left to self start, self define and self reward, you can forget 100% task completion. I want my cookie. I want my gold star. I want my little construction paper square stapled on the class wall signifying my completion rate. In this regard, I am quite competitive but I compete mostly with myself. I will not gun for the 3 points I lost on a test so as to get a 100%. I am content with my 97%. I am not content with an 87%. I push myself to attain. I think sustaining a pace is not my strong suit or at least it is not what I perceive as my strength. I wouldn’t categorize myself as an endurance runner. Except…..I am the little engine that could…..plop a mountain in front of me and I tackle it. I tackle it after I pitch a glorious fit for a nano second. Then, my brain says, “They think you can’t beat this.”
We are ON!
Tell me NO! and I want to know why? Tell me it isn’t possible and I will dissect things apart trying to know if that is true. I can accept the impossible. I understand limitation. I will never walk the surface of the moon or lick my own elbow, but I could be a yoga instructor. I could fold in half like a suitcase if I was dedicated. Physically, I am limited by my own attention to my body. Mentally, I am limited by my own attention to expanding myself intellectually. I don’t know a fraction of what I want to know. My desire to understand how to make a crunchy cookie chewy outweighs my interest in conversational string theory.
So, I have to learn to stay on task. Stay focused. I have this strange variant of A.D.D. I leave one small particle of a project incomplete. It is my minor rebellion. One chart out of 20 is left in defiance. One pot out of all of dinner’s preparations sits soaking in the sink. One pair of shoes in the foyer despite cleaning the entire house stands in acknowledgment that I am not perfect. I refuse to pair socks and they accumulate in a basket. I obviously don’t want to be perfect because the rouge pot doesn’t nag at me. I am not OCD, having to do that last task so as to control my environment.
And thus sits my novel. It is complete and has one round of editing. But it is too long. And while two agents have requested full manuscripts, I am piddling at other creative projects: sewing, blogging, writing new fiction, canning and generally daydreaming. I should be disciplined and sit my ass down and edit that damn book. I need to trim the fat, tighten all the screws and snip off the errant strings. I need to complete this task and graduate. THEN I can move on to the next creative project.
I get my brain wrapped around the concept that writing the book was the first mountain in a mountain RANGE. And since it is said I am a dreamer, a whack job and out of my right mind to divert my life off on this wild goose chase…….WE ARE ON!
I have written a book. And now, like Lewis and Clark, I stand on the plateau and say…..well, ain’t that some shit…..more mountains. Its cool. I am built for this. And inthe potent words of Linkin Park, “Try and keep up, motherf@@@ers!”