Thursday Update

Hello, friends.

I haven’t been posting very much this week, mostly because I’ve been feeling a bit gross and under the weather and I haven’t really had much to report.  To be honest, I still don’t.  I’ve basically spent the last two days in my pajamas trying not to feel sick.

I did dig out my really old PC, the one that cratered when I tried to upload Photoshop to it like, a million years ago.  Clearly, that was asking too much of the poor machine because it short-circuited and croaked faster than my brain when confronted with Calculus.  My goal was to wipe it clean and just reboot it, and I thought I’d almost succeeded, but it’s still acting up this morning and I’m afraid it just might be a lost cause.

I have a MacBook which I love (and which I’m using right now), but formatting is so much easier on a PC.  At the moment, I’m helping my friend Paula format her new novella, The Conservative Congregant.  I was hoping that I might be able to use the new/old PC, but I think my old one is going to have to suffice.  It probably will.  It just has SO much stuff on it already!

Other stuff on my mind recently:

It’s officially August!  That means that as much as I love summer, I start fantasizing about fall on a daily basis.

It also means, however, that today, we are exactly TWO MONTHS away from the release of the third Cemetery Tours book, After Death, and I am still working on revisions!  I know I’ll get it out in time… But I’m really cutting it close!  My procrastinator ways are really testing me on this one.  But it will get done.  There is no doubt in my mind.

I’m also in the process of gearing up for two months of book events!  I have quite a few lined up for both September and October and I can’t wait for everything to really get started!  Autumn is the time for ghost stories after all.

Anyway, I’m beginning to feel icky and gross again.  Might go lay down.  If you’d like to make me feel better, go read my books.  Your reading power will heal me.

Much love, all!

Focus

Hi, friends!

I haven’t been very good at keeping up with y’all.  Sorry about that.  I’ve seen two out-of-town friends this week and have been hiking and swimming and bowling despite my body telling me that it’s feeling sick and that I need to slow down a little bit and today… it just kind of crashed.

Still, I want to try and get some work done because I have been playing way too much for someone who wants to get two more books out by the end of this year.  Play is a wonderful thing, and I want to spend as much time with my out-of-town friends (and my in-town friends as well) as I can, but I do need to focus.  I can’t lose sight of my goals and what I want to accomplish.

Since I was little, I’ve always been a very goal-oriented person.  I’m like those mice in Who Moved My Cheese.  I have to be working toward something or else I just don’t know what i’m doing.  Right now, I’m working toward getting the next Cemetery Tours book written.  My goal is to have the first draft of the manuscript done by the end of the month so that I can get it to my editors and published by late September/early October.  Then, I hope to have the next Boy Band book out by December.  Overly ambitious?  Perhaps.  But if I don’t feel like the books are high-quality enough or worth publishing, then I won’t.

So yeah, getting those two books out by the end of the year are my short-term goals.  Lately, however, I’ve been thinking a lot about long-term goals.  It used to be those long-term goals that drove me, but lately life has been so busy that I’ve only had time to really think about the short-term.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s good to have both short and long-term goals.  Those long-term goals, I think, inspire short-term goals.  For example, my desire to succeed as an adult drove me to try my hardest in school.  Well, high school anyway.  By the time I got to college and grad school, I really just wanted to graduate.  Even then, however, my hopes and dreams for the future continued to drive me.

I know I’ve shared my Bucket List of things I’ve already done (https://jackiesmith114.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/extraordinary/).  I did that because, even though I think it’s wonderful and good to have dreams of the future, it’s also a good idea to acknowledge the good things that have already happened in life.  Counting your blessings, as it were.  However, I don’t think I’ve posted my actual Bucket List here, my dreams of what I hope my life will be.  Maybe I haven’t shared them because I’m afraid they won’t come true.  I’m not sure.  Whatever, the reason, these aren’t all of my goals, just a few of them.

1) Travel.  My dream destinations are: Australia, New Zealand, North Carolina, Alaska, back to Scotland, New England, London, and Paris.

2) Become a NYT bestselling author by the time I’m 30.

3) Renovate my parents’ house.

4) Do something good for homeless animals and endangered species around the world and work with a marine mammal/sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation center.

5) Own a beach house.

I have several other smaller specific ones, such as celebrate Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts and go see a movie at the drive-in (I can’t believe I still haven’t done that one).  But I think those five I listed are the ones I dream about the most.

What do y’all dream about?

It’s Okay to Have Fun

It’s good to be ambitious.  It’s good to have dreams.  It’s good to be productive.  It’s good to work, work, work.  In this life, you have to strive.  You have to push yourself.  You have to work harder than anyone else and want it more than anyone else if you want to get ahead.  Our American society is very much a work and toil and sacrifice-driven society.

Kids today are being prepped for college as early as elementary school.  College students are bending over backwards and stressed to the breaking point in order to make the grade.  Adults wander around like zombies, with dead eyes and listless spirits because they work so hard that it’s consumed their very being. It’s kind of scary.

It’s been engrained in our heads that if we don’t make the big money and have super successful careers then we don’t amount to anything in this world.  And okay, yes, I’ll admit that it is good to have a career and make money.  i’m not saying it isn’t.  Jobs are good.  They keep our world in balance.  We need people with jobs of all kinds.  But I feel like it needs to be said every now and then that it’s also okay to have fun.  Work and ambitions don’t need to control your life.  In fact, I don’t think they should.

Last night, I hung out with one of my best friends.  We both had stuff to talk about.  Somewhat heavy, but nothing too bad.  After we finished talking, we kicked off our shoes, poured ourselves some wine, and played Mario Kart.  That is not something I would normally be doing on a work night.  That’s usually when I do most of my writing.  But you know what?  It was great.  I loved just hanging out with her, laughing, and playing some good, old-fashioned Nintendo.

John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”  I love the extraordinary moments in life, seeing a new place or publishing a new book.  But those precious ordinary moments of fun and laughter and just being with the people you love, those are the moments that really make a life.  Please, goof off.  Have fun.  Be silly.  Remember to enjoy.  Life is worth it.