Catching Idle Butterflies

Accountability

I’m not a self-motivated person. If someone doesn’t push me or give me deadlines for something, I’ll either wait forever to do it, or not do it at all.

This happens at work all the time. If someone comes up to me with a project, including clients, my first question is, “When do you need it?”

If they tell me “whenever,” I always respond, “Then it will never get done. I need a deadline.”

Plus my memory isn’t what it used to be. If I’m given a piddley thing to do, I drop what I’m doing, especially if it’s a larger project, and do the little thing right away.

More often than not I get, “Oh, you don’t have to do it now.”

My standard response is, “If I don’t then I’ll forget about it.” Even if I write it down, I sometimes forget (usually because I misplaced the note ).

The same goes for writing. I write a lot, but I haven’t been motivated to market what I write. Again, I have but myself to push me, and that ain’t workin’.

Last night was the “Thank God It’s Over” get-together for myself and other local NaNoWriMo’ers. We met at a local pub and talked about our books, about our experiences with NaNo, etc. One guy, BJ, asked the rest of us to be a part of a writing group he wants to start.

I wasn’t so sure about joining for a while. I’ve tried a writing group before and it fizzled within a year. First off, I was the only one writing, when we did meet the other two only complained about how they weren’t writing and they needed to blah, blah, blah, and if I didn’t remind them a meeting was coming up, they would have forgotten and never showed.

It wouldn’t be a Christian writer’s group, which also gave me pause. Then again having non-Christians reading my work, they’ll be able to tell me if my words are too preachy in both my fiction and non-fiction.

BJ and the other two wanting to join sound fairly motivated, so I decided I had nothing to lose by giving it a try. Plus, we talked about what we expect from writing groups, and I was pleased to discover they’re all anal about critiques. They want to know if a comma is in the wrong place, if something is too vague or doesn’t make sense – in other words, my kind of writers! I didn’t earn the moniker “Grammar Nazi” at work for nothing, you know.

Tomorrow and Friday you won’t see me around during the day. I have a Land Surveyor’s Conference to attend. Depending on the speaker and how much he will expect from the audience, I normally have fun at these things, and learn a lot. Of the dozen or so I’ve attended, only two speakers bored me drooling. Luckily, though, they didn’t speak for the entire two days, but only for a few hours. Still, it hurts me to even think about those hours. I want them back!!!

I hope you’re having a wonderly hump day, and the rest of the week portends to be joyous.

Oh, and I want to share with you a link Voxxylady shared in her blog entry "covered ears"  It’s both touching and inspiring, and it gives you a perfect picture of what a simple hug can mean to all who give and receive one: http://www.freehugs.org:80/