I’ve heard that authors make a gazillion decisions every time they sit down to write. I think at least one decision is made that gets them in the chair: they choose to write in that moment. We think we have a list of priorities, maybe narrowed down to 3-5. But in any moment, we can choose only one “task”. And once we make that choice, saying “yes” to one thing, we say no to all the rest.
I spent time this week listening to sessions from a summit. Did you know that October was “summit season”? I picked up a few nuggets of wisdom. I listened while I drove to and from the barn. It’s interesting that so many people are part of the publishing industry. I’ve been at this for 15 years. I’m familiar with many of the “big names”. What I’ve discovered in these summits/webinars/masterclasses are others who have built a career by writing books and then helping others to do the same.
By choosing to listen to the summit sessions, I’ve put my audiobook on hold and now have a few podcast episodes to catch up on. Diligently combing through my emails to whittle down my inbox to something more manageable, I’m not making progress on my three remaining projects.
One of the summit sessions listed suggestions for self-care. Another offered symptoms of burnout. A third gave a template for creating an author mission, and from that, a tagline. Nuggets. In the small spaces between choosing one priority over the list of others, I continued to turn back to my stories. Maybe tomorrow one of my projects will be a priority, then everything else will have to wait. How do you choose where to devote your time and energy?
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