I'm on the American Whiskey Trail* and I'm writing. Some of the pubs of my bucket list have accepted my writing on the topic. It's intoxicating. Literally. But I've spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing to further my writing. Sometimes I spend the day as the middle of a blanket burrito wondering what I did to someone in a past life to suck so much. The experiences leading up to the crappy days have taught me how I can avoid living my dreams, and I thought I'd share:
1. Distrust your intuition. In business, it's good to make well-reasoned decisions, but if you have a squicky feeling about a setup, follow your gut. It's easier to walk away amicably before crap gets real than afterwards. 2. Don't write anything down. I'm probably not going to remember what I have to get done today if it's not logged in a to-do list. Last month, I had an idea for a novel...and didn't bother to write it down. It was something about a woman and a dog or a unicorn, but it was bestseller-quality. 3. Let rejection dictate your day. Just stahp. What can you learn from this and do better next time? Can you reshape it to mesh with another publication's needs? If yes, do it, then eat ice cream and binge watch Arrow. Not the other way around. 4. Procrastinate. Believe me, I'm a BOSS at putting off assignments I dread. But it also makes me a hostage to my whims rather than indulging them off the clock. Just do it, man. 5. Go at it alone. If it wasn't for my friends, I'd be in an asylum. They're my support group and cheering squad and wine -- I mean book -- club wrapped into one, and I'd be a mess without them. They're also quite literally the only reason I started writing journalistically and have the resources to keep doing badass work.
*More on that later.
