Thursday, July 12, 2007

No Pain, No Gain

The quote for today in my daily planner is "Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don't like to do." Someone named Albert Gray (should I know him?) said this, and I have to agree.

When I give talks or classes on writing, I like to harp on the most utterly basic part of the "How to be a writer" equation: To be a writer, you must write. A similar rule applies to the "How to get published" equation: To get published, you must submit your work. And, of course, to do that you're gonna have to write something. All the way to the end. (I know, weak so-called equations. But I'm tired and this is an of-the-moment blog post.)

Well today I saw the quote and felt like I'd been singled out as a LOSER. I am pretty good at being proactive and staying on top of work issues (you can't sustain a freelance business if you're not), but my reaction to the stupid quote told me that it was time to clear some emotional clutter and tackle a couple of things that I just don't like to do.

One of those oh-so-avoidable tasks was to write a letter requesting the termination of two (that's right, two!) stalled book contracts from 2005 (that's right, 2005!). I've been dragging my feet on the final follow-through because . . . well . . . just because. But the time has come to just get it over with. I wrote the letter this afternoon and will likely send it off tomorrow.

I'm truly hoping for a clean and pleasant break. Makes me a little sick, though.

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