Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.
By Pandora Poikilos
I've been caught up with so many different things in the past month that I didn't make the time to sit down and write a post. I wanted to. But like our two little heroes, I allowed a black crow if not a few distract me.
Most of you already know I've been engrossed in putting together Orangeberry Book Tours, launching my second novel, Frequent Traveller and getting the second edition for Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out all dolled up.
A secret? I'm terrified of failure. It's the one thing that keeps me awake at night. I can turn something around in my head and tell you 100 hundred ways it'll fail before I give you one reason why it'll succeed. Call it low self-esteem, being picky or even dysfunctional but this is something I'm beginning realise even more as the days go by. I'm a firm believer of "a task worth doing is worth doing well" which means if you can't be bothered to do it well then don't do it all.
Yes, mistakes happen but when you're given the opportunity to correct them, go for it. Don't sit back and wait for someone else to do the job for you. More than once people have told me, "I don't know how you juggle all of this". Truth be told, I don't know.
I have a daily calendar which I try to stick as much as I can. My days are divided into work hours, social media time, tv time and writing hours. I see it as room to do more, others have seen it and looked at me as if I've lost my marbles.
All well and good but these are the very traits that have have had me in a bind in the past month. I've reached the point where I want to do more than my mind and health will allow me. And if all that wasn't enough, my PC decided she had had enough too and crashed on me.
Which brings me back to our two little heroes. If the crow hadn't descended on them, how bad would their fight have been? Would they have had horrible injuries? Just like them, we need black crows in our lives as well. We need little disasters, however frightening, to wake us up.
For more than a year, Peas has been literally 'after' me to have "proper" recovery time after my surgery. I said a month, he said six. End result, I've written two books in a year, compiled and rewritten my previously unpublished short stories, started a book tour campaign and dabbled in numerous other projects.
At one stage, my eyes felt so terrible, we have now made a solemn agreement that I take at least one day off from all computer-related activities. And yes, I mean 'solemn'. My recent black crow didn't descend directly on me, it came in the stories that readers and other authors have shared with me.
The daughter who is struggling after an accident, the mother coming to terms with losing her vision, the wife who wants just a bit more time with her dying husband and the mother willing to do anything to trade places with her ill child. These are the daily reminders that there is more to life.
There isn't a profound message tucked away in this post so don't go looking for it. I will only tell you this, pour your heart into all that you do. It is the only way a masterpiece is truly born, even if this takes decades to happen. If you are happy with every inch of what you have done, then so be it. Life will reward you, one way or another. If you're not, learn how to make it better. No one else can stand by your work, only you can do that.
But, make way for black crows. They'll frighten you and disrupt your life. In the end, like our two little heroes, you'll learn to step back. You'll forget the petty issues and remember the most important people in your life which is what life is all about - people not things. Love and light.
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