Project Pivot: Breaking the rules to follow an idea

Where I come from, you finish what you start. Join a team; make every practice. Get an assignment; complete it on time. Start a book; finish the book. Say you’re going to do whatever; do whatever until whatever is done. Those were the rule’s in my mother’s house, so those are the rules, at age 32, I still march to in my own house. Good training, Nancy.

I’ve recently stumbled upon a quandary with regard to these instincts. The project I started a few months ago, a new book, was being threatened by a series of things: a) I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task of jumping, feet first into a long work of fiction, b) I was kind of procrastinating, c) I was hit with another idea that I got really excited about.

But following new ideas into the weeds with an open project pending isn’t part of my programming. So I resisted. Maybe later. I said I’m doing this thing. So I’m doing it.

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The Joy of Waiting

I’m about to have an idea. Don’t ask me how I know it, I just do, and I’m super excited about it. I’m also about to have a nephew, and my vocabulary isn’t deep enough to express how thrilled I am about his new human who is about to be my favorite human who has ever existed. I’m actually excited about a number of pending things, which shouldn’t be an unusual thing to confess, except that it is. Because it’s not just that I’m excited about things that I’m waiting for, but also that I’m actually enjoying waiting for them. And that is new.

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