puja-shah

So recently, two weeks ago, I was at Amish’s seminar for the Magic Bullet System…and surprisingly gained more insight on writing through these internet marketers like him, Frank Kern and more…

On the random days that I wasn’t writing for my challenge, I started to become paranoid, like what if I don’t finish?

And learned the SO WHAT? mentality from these lectures. It will get done, it will be okay, just to do it for doing it because I love it.

The whole idea of deadlines and misconstrued notion that if we don’t set our selves up for an opportunity to disappoint ourselves, we won’t get things done, stems from our conditioned environments of our school days, of an American education system that thrives on cramming things in, such as state exams or board exams, sometimes with irrelevant information for what it is we are dedicating so much time to. We never absorb to love what we do, deferring ourselves from truly feeling it as a passion.

We say we love it, I say I love writing, but the times I write and actually feel this love for it, for what I am doing in that moment, are rare, more likely feeling that at times when I just pick up to write a poem, feel something, write it down.

Everything is “Go, go, go” and fast paced in the accomplishment world, which I can totally handle with my New York roots, but I started to feel like I was rushing everything. Writing just to write. Blogging just to blog. How is that an accomplishment?

I also saw myself making writing a chore. Do it while I was doing other things, the multi-tasking in me kicking in and then I heard Frank Kern’s lecture from Amish’s seminar in the back of my mind. “Thou shalt not f#$k around.” Instead of doing ten things at once, instead of getting on my Macbook to write a story and then opening Safari and a few tabs with my bridal registry, my wedding planning, emailing my cousin, paying a bill….I need to just write to write. Stop all the other bullshit, (So yes, that’s where I had disappeared to)…

I stopped for a week and saw how it changed me as a writer.

I wrote when I was not stressed about having to write and ended up writing more substantial work.

I was writing with more feeling, and even if it wasn’t 5 pages all at once, maybe sometimes barely a page every other day, it was deeper, more meaningful to my character development, less rushed.

I then met with a friend, Vivian Glyck, who I respect for her knowledge on publishing.

She made me realize and basically I started to understand that with my goal, for publishing my short stories, a 90 day challenge was unrealistic, due to the fact that, with her advice and other friends who have been published advised, to have my stories edited professionally, which takes a lot of time.

It made me think, I want to do this the right way. I don’t want to look back and think, why didn’t I give it more time?

I want to look back and feel connected to my work with a sense of satisfaction that I did it right. I gave it my best shot. I didn’t do it to just to do it. I am, my life, is actually part of it. And when I look at it that way, it will really get done and I’ll never feel anxiety on questioning it. So, here I go, the right way, part deux.

P.S. Thanks for reading, I’ll be back every once in awhile, stay connected Read more…

This whole weekend, I have been engrossed in spending time with my sister.

We went hiking, talked, stayed up until 4 am the other night, just…being sisters.

I haven’t written much…but talked to her a lot about my ideas, goals and feelings about my story, my challenge. And it felt good talking about it.

Maybe part of this challenge, is actually developing the ideas that entail completing it, rather than just the stories, because as a whole, they both need development.

As much as I have been editing myself, (I gave my story about Chinese culture/ancient Chinese play) to my sister to read and she gave me some input since she is am Acupuncture/Chinese medicine student, but think that after her input, a good idea would be to perhaps send my work, all of it, to a professional editor for fine tuning.

I need to see how long this will take, what the costs are, and what they do to see if it is worth it. though. It’s all so new for me that figuring it out is part of my challenge…

Today is the mid-way point for my challenge.

45 days completed. 45 more to go.

I decided I needed to make a checklist for what I have left to do…

-finish my sisters’ story

-edit all stores

-contact self publishing web site/service

-market book via different mediums

This doesn’t seem like a huge list of things to do…but they are huge things to do!!! Editing itself can take a long time, and so I need to set mini timeline goals for myself. I need to have ALL STORIES , including ones I have written in the past that I want to include in the book, edited by the end of the month. That seems like a long time away, but I still need to finish up one story and edit almost 8-10 total stories myself. Not easy, but if I finish by the end of April, it will then give me at least one month for the publishing and marketing part of it all, which I have heard can take longer, so hopefully it doesn’t!

So, in summary… reflecting on my mid-challenge what I have left to do crisis here…

I’ve got a lot of work :/

Sometimes you just have to do it. I have been writing, I mean always writing, stories, poetry, random thoughts for so many years and started feeling this itch recently.

My acupuncturist, (who I think can read my mind but that’s another story), a few months ago, asked me, “Have you been feeling like you haven’t achieved something? Do you feel like the need to do something?”

I looked at him, as I often did, and in my mind asked him “Thomas can you hear me?”

I looked for his face to change, was he really reading my mind?

I found no signals as he continued.

“In the month of Scorpio, most signs are affected. You will have a feeling of restlessness, this feeling like you need to achieve something and can’t wait for it.”

Damn, I remember thinking, he has to be reading my mind.

I had been feeling like I needed to spend more time on my writing, to get it out there, to share the importance of the messages in my work, sometimes, fictional stories about world issues that sit within me.

Maybe it really was the moon and stars and astrology of my ancestors that were guiding my energy towards feeling the strength in this impatience to achieve, to finish something.

Or maybe, I finally just realized that I need to do this.

I decided the best way was to challenge myself.

A challenge to put my book of short stories I always wanted to do together and self publish. I have A LOT more stories to write, and I know that without a push, without a self appointed deadline, my carefree Sagitarius nature may overpower that urge from the month of Scorio and it may never happen then.

Recently, it felt like everything fell into my plate. Another part time job, volunteer teaching, planning my wedding for this summer, and of course now this. But if not now, then when? And as many of you know, being busy can sometimes cause the infamous enemy: WRITER’S BLOCK. So I needed to make sure I had a creativitiy stimulator. (Sounds like a device or gadget right? If only they did really make one like “go go gadget creativity!”)

I started going to this writer’s group with my friend Jenny, and things started flowing a little more which got me all fired up about when I thought of doing this on my last trip to NY, which was around my grandfather’s death anniversary. As cliché as that may sound, (many of you who know me well and have heard about him know that this isn’t actually cliché  at all), I started all this introspection. What would he be saying to me if I went to him for advice?

“You must always write tell your stories, and for yourself, do not ever stop writing.” He said to me once after telling me one of the beautiful stories of the Ramayana. He was an amazing story teller.

Well, Dada, you’re right, I should never stop. So here I go.