Time flying once again

It’s been a year and two days since I started this blog. A year and two days.

I’m happy to say I have achieved some of the goals from a year (and two days) ago. More importantly, I’ve faced up to the fact that I tend to spread myself too thin and have taken steps to correct this. Realizing the fact of this was one thing, doing something about it has been something else. So, I’ve given up a bit of work in a county far, far away in order to have more time for the pursuits I love, but I still have the problem of loving many, many pursuits. I realized I needed to make some decisions about those as well. I’ve narrowed the long and winding list down to two desires to which I can surrender.

Creating and writing. Writing and creating.

Creating in the sense of being an artist and creating 3-dimensional objects. The objects tend to be figures, dressed with small accessories. Since I love stories, my 3-dimensional creations often have names and always have their own little tales. They always, always make me smile.

Writing is also, of course, creating, and I love telling stories, but writing is more than that. Even more than when I’m creating something 3-dimensional, writing allows me to be in charge. If I can’t make the face out of paper clay for the figure quite the way I’d first envisioned it, I change the fabrics or the pose or the items they hold until I see before me something that pleases me. In writing, I can describe the face (or the fabrics or the pose) and draw a word picture that is precisely what I want. It may or may not be true, but I feel I have more freedom when I’m writing.

I had some help in figuring out that I would not be as likely to achieve those things I want until I freaking figured out which things I want the most. I recently read a book called, the Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D. Here is my favorite bit.

Failure to follow desire, to do what you want to do most, paves the way to mediocrity. the only way to get full power, to develop full go force, is to do what you want to do. Surrender to desire. Surrender to the goal. Really surrender. Let it obsess you and give you the automatic instrumentation you need to reach that goal.

So, surrender already.