Saturday, March 13, 2010

Living in the State of Inertia

Thank god for best friends. My best friend and I serve many purposes in each other's lives. Lately it's occurred to me that we're also each other's managers.

She got downsized out of her job last month and so, despite the fact that I haven't worked full-time for 6 years, I've been her consultant, marketer, and, hopefully, her idea person, though she's pretty darn good at it herself.

And here's what she did for me yesterday when we had lunch. She was checking up with me on the status of my various article proposals when I had to admit that I have a lot of ideas but no sent queries lately. I tend to have too much knocking around in my head all the time and then when it comes to execution I'm flying here and there and never get anything done. Should I edit my book? Should I send a query to Brain Child, More Magazine, Lilith, should I be local or national? What's the best for the writing career, for the book? And then what happens? I get so wrought up with everything I should be doing, I get the exactly opposite. A feeling of inertia comes over me and I do nothing.

Well, best friend got me pinned down. I was going to ship off a proposal to a certain magazine to be their blog editor, mainly because I've been the blog editor for Poetica for a year and it doesn't take much work and I'd like to increase my name recognition with a bigger market. So she started talking about compensation and I realized that, because of my life situation, the money's not the thing, the question is the time. Can I handle a very demanding editor job? And what exactly is going to have to give to fit that in because right now I can barely find time to breathe.

So, right now it's no on the editor query. But because of her I sent a query to Brain Child today for the Debate section, and a query to More Magazine for either an essay or the Front of Book. Also, I got my Holocaust Anthology from Poetica yesterday with my work in it and it's really lovely - gave my mom a copy with the dedication to her and she was thrilled. And Sandra Hurtes, who is hosting my work this month, has decided to have the pages with her writers be permanent so that my work will stay on there and she's going to invite agents to view the work of her friends.

Now I just have to remember what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. Um. How about this: Other More Magazine query (on 50 in longterm marriage) and Lilith Church piece? Also respond to editor at Jewish News asking for info on the special sections.

I can't believe I finally moved on something. I feel like a mountain that just had its facade crack a little. The good thing is that my inertia didn't last that long. Hopefully if I get in another immobile state, it will go by even more quickly.

Do you have a friend who can organize you and pull you together? Do you tend towards states of inertia?

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