Reprioritizing

In November life around here was pretty stressed. We were getting ready for the launch of the second Schlock book and business concerns reigned supreme. There were lots of little sacrifices of family time to feed the engine of business. In December we eased off on the business stuff and put the family stuff back in. It felt so good that we did the same for most of January as well. Unfortunately this has now put us behind our intended schedule for the next Schlock book.

Just this week I have made contractual negotiations with an artist to illustrate my children’s book. Creating this book is going to take 3 months of emailing to discuss the pictures. I am thrilled about this project. I am overwhelmed by this project. It is breaking new ground for me and I’m nervous. There is so many ways for this to go wrong and just as many wonderful ways for it to go right. I’m tempted to go babbling to Howard with every care and concern about this project, but I have realized that if I do so I’ll be taking up the space in his brain that he needs to put toward creating his book. Since Howard’s books are the ones that pay our bills, I really need to not interfere with their completion. In fact I need to get my head back on straight and aid an abet the completion of the next Schlock book.

Being more focused on helping Howard get his next book out does not mean abandoning my projects. I just need to make sure that my projects stay out from under his feet. I also need to make sure that my projects do not interfere with the daily getting-things-done that is necessary to keep life running smoothly. Oh but I want to just ignore laundry and dishes and children to chase the shiny project. I mustn’t do that. I need to keep everything moving.

I just realized something. I always have a project in process. The type of project varies greatly from “keep the house perfectly clean” to “writing a story” to “planting a garden” to “teaching Gleek to read.” Right now I’m enthusiastically chasing this book project, but I’m also trying to psyche myself up to be really excited about facilitating Howard’s book. It’s working.