Operation: STFUSWDITW
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”Bill Cosby
For the purposes of this post I’m going to completely bastardise the above quote and apply the term everybody to mean me.
Like most people on this planet – scratch that – like every single person on this planet I have more than one persona. I act and live differently depending on where I am, who I’m with, what day of the week it is, what the weather is like, how hungry I am, what’s in my pockets and most importantly what mood I’m in. Tiny tweaks in external and internal parameters can change my whole outset on life, granted this never lasts too long and soon enough I’m a totally different Steven, but at any one point (or persona) I’m trying to please that version of myself (save the self abuse jokes to the end of the post, please).
Because I’m always changing its very hard to please current Steven, in fact it’s impossible because five minutes into ‘aiming to please’ something will come along that will alter my mood/persona/voiceinmyhead and I’ll have to start all over again…
So I’ve decided to implement Operation: Shut the Fuck up, Steven – we’re doing it this way, or Operation: STFUSWDITW for ‘short’. I think it has a nice ring to it.
Basically I’m going to stop pleasing myself (I said save the jokes until the end!!). I’m going to attempt to set goals, goals that I will hate, goals that will piss me off, have me ranting and raving at my own stupidity for setting such ludicrous targets – but (every cheesy movie closing scene) – will work out in the end and leave me Saturday morning cartoon freeze-frame jumping and punching the air with an ‘everything’s resolved’ kind of smile on my face (also I may do the cheesy laugh into the credits).
What do you mean ‘change is good’?
This is going to be a bit of a ball ache to say the least, it’s going to rely on long-term planning, discipline, punishment, chastising myself…hang on, I think I’ve strayed into one-handed exercise jokes.
I’m going to have to constantly annoy myself just to get things done (for your info there aren’t many of my personas that enjoy work), which means I’ll probably be miserable and grumpy (big change there then) for a while.
It’s the same with anything worth having I suppose; if it were easy then it wouldn’t be worth having. However, I’ve never been one for restraint, self-control or preparation so setting long term targets is probably going to hurt. It means I’ll have to forgo jumping from project to project just to feel like I’m getting somewhere…hey, having the first thousand words to 100 novels is better than having 100,000 words of one novel, right?
No, Steven, no it’s not – STFU and get on with your almost finished novel.
Sad news: This means I will have to miss Camp NaNo.
Good news: I should have the first draft of my novel finished by the time summer nano ends.
So here are some goals I will be setting myself (more to follow):
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Have 100,000 words for current novel by end of August (currently 80,000)
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Create full character profiles
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Create a scene by scene breakdown of my novel
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Remove and replace missing info (bits I fudged with filler notes)
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Research unfamiliar areas in order to add more details (or increase believability)
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Have a finished first draft by end of August (may be more than 100k)
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Have a printed first draft by 1st Sep to leave to ferment, while I ice my brain down
Ooh, before I forget, while I was writing this post I found another relevant ‘success’ quote, which I quite liked:
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”Mark Twain
Well, one out of two ain’t bad!
Ok this is officially the end of the post…so feel free to make some jokes about cutting off a fowl’s air supply…
Brilliant! And thanks for the Twain quote – definitely one for the CV!
Don't have any jokes. Sounds like you've got a good plan if you stick to it.
Lee
Tossing It Out
Good luck with those goals. We all need them. Now, if I can just find where I put the notepad with my list of goals.