Focus

This past week I had a very specific goal.  And that was to write "The End" on the last page of my book.  I had FIVE days to hand my manuscript to my very first reader who had flown into Boston.  We were meeting up in Belmont, Massachusetts for the hand off.  This deal was going down.

I thought I was closer than I was, but I began encountering all my astericks, my highlighted notes of things that needed fixing. Oh man, there was so much reading and rewriting I needed to do, about 75 pages a day.

Yeah, I could've said, I'll just mail it to her a few days late.  But no, that didn't sit right.  I had to get this done.  I felt a great urgency to complete it.  I'd set this goal months ago...I'll have it done by Thanksgiving.  Didn't happen.  Christmas, and then, I'll have it done by the end of 2011, and then the end of January.  It was time to kick it up a notch.

I had to do something different.  My schedule had to be tweaked in a bigger way.

“To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.”

-Richard G. Scott

What I had to do was focus.


I wrote myself little notes...a big number that represented the number of days I had left.  Right in front of my desk (that I finally cleaned off so that I could actually sit at it instead of just pile more stuff on top of it.)  On my bedside table was the note: No blogging, no facebook, nothing extra, FOCUS.  The days flew by like always, 5 days turned to 4, then 3...


There were some gifts this week.  Paige had Grandma School on Monday.  For three uninterrupted hours I kept butt in chair.  Then Paige had a morning playdate on Tuesday.  She and her little buddy are at the point where they play and need very little of me.  I threw them apples for sustenance and hollered to "get along."  They did splendidly, probably because that bleary-looking lady wasn't very helpful anyway.  


My usual writing hour occurs every afternoon when Paige watches her show.  Okay, I admit, it's more than 1 show.  But I don't mess with the morning.  No, my mornings are sacred Paige time.  So my writing has to happen during the afternoon viewings of Calliou.  I adore you Calliou, you and your bald head.


There were some moments where I almost swerved right off the track.  One day Paige was scared of Bruce the shark and kept opening the door to the study. The creaky door was driving me mad...Creak, creak, mommy?  creak, creak...(where was that darn Pam spray?)  Open, shut, open, shut, creak...Still, I had my focus on.  Plus I had the black juice on hand.  I can get anything done with the juice.


Every day, as 3 o'clock loomed, I'd look out the window and be spurred into creative thought...focus! half an hour until the kids get off the bus.  piano lessons, friends coming for cookie-making, pick up from knitting club, don't forget Matt Nathanson concert tonight (yes!), homework, lunch money, the house is so bad...forget the house.  


FOCUS.  It's my new F word.  And it's all good.


The Merriam-online-Dictionary was up on my computer all week (fabulous addition to my life) and I could look up words quickly instead of stopping and painfully looking through dictionary on my desk.  This is probably a sad statement.  Perseverance:  : continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness 


I was my own enemy at times, staying up past midnight two nights, and got up early too often.  Midnight bedtimes always come back to bite me.  I am a very terrible night owl.  I crashed on thursday.  Despite some early morning runs and the great belief I harbor, that I will not get sick if I run, I got the worst cold I've had in a year.  Turning this into a positive, I was not throwing up.  


My own negativity was not invited to the party.  Julia Cameron, writing guru and author of The Artist's Way actually named her self-doubt, Nigel.  Nigel visits her often, sits on her shoulder and laughs, scoffs, and says things like, average, horrid, please stop now, this is painful to read, seriously, who do you think you are?  I just can't stand that Nigel.  I told him to leave.  He was not allowed into my home this week.  Banished.  Focus was the only invited guest.


What could have been seen as a bump turned into a blessing when school was cancelled on Friday.  I took the kids to the gym and sat in G's office.  For hours I sat, jumping up here and there to find more markers, settle disputes, and forage for muffins.  Crashed in the afternoon, revived at night. 1 day left.


I made myself get up early saturday morning.  Saturday was the day I had to print off my document.  Half an hour of focus and then up to make brownies for a baptism, yell to practice the piano, show a child how to properly clean a sink, scramble to get Cope to babysitting (forgot and was 1/2 an hour late).  Finally.  I just had to say it was as good as it was going to get.  


Save.  
Print.  
Rubber banded.
Done.


I had this feeling, this great weight that lifted right off of me.  It's not perfect.  Oh no, I know that I will most likely rewrite half of it.  My scrutinizing readers have been told to be brutal.  They will take the red pen and scissors to it. The plot and subplot need to be tighter, it's over-written in parts, too much detail here, not enough there, did I show more than tell?  There is so much more to do.  But I don't care.  I am lighter because I wrote, "The End."


It took me 14 months  
304 pages
84, 686 words


I also have to admit, I love my main character, ten-year-old Gwynavere St. Clair because she is smart, curious, and brave.  Will she come through the way I hope?


All this focus really did turn my brain to mush.  I'm not really functioning.  When you encounter me, I apologize if you feel like you're talking to a zombie.  Someone actually asked me if I was pregnant.  My cold isn't helping.  I don't even know the combination of anti-histamines and decongestants I'm on.  


I forgot some major stuff, even though I look at my planner, like, every five minutes.  There was Nelson's very last soccer game on Saturday.  It was an indoor tournament that I thought was at 1:30, but no, they played at 11:30.  I felt so bad, esp. when he hung his head like a dog and said he was depressed.  He actually used those words.  I drove like a crazy lady from the tournament to a funeral, and then we raced all the way to Massachusetts only to discover the baptism was actually at 4, not 5.  We had missed the whole thing.  Except for dinner.  Yeah, nice going. 


But I handed it over, that rubber-banded manuscript, in Belmont, Massachusetts.  And I smiled a secret thought, Hallelujah there is a God in heaven.


I really liked having one single goal to focus on for a week.  I'm not sure it's entirely practical when you are a mother, because part of motherhood success is balance.  Yet I see that if I scoot just a little more this way or a little more that way there are different things I can accomplish.  And it doesn't have to be more it's just different.  Because most of us don't need any more to do.


Like this week could be a focus on naps.  Or Valentine's...it's not too early, right?  Or laying in bed with with my babes, books in hand.  Or playing more games.  Or maybe I'll just make sure all the kids take a bath - with shampoo and conditioner, then cut all fingernails and toes...that's eighty nails!  Some days, that really is the accomplishment.  And at this point, that actually sounds quite dreamy.