Mentally Physical, Five Minutes at a Time

"Mom," he asked, in exasperation more than curiosity, "how do you keep running so well?"

His mother jogged in place. "You have to make all your physical challenges into mental challenges.  You put your lungs inside your mind, and think your way around the path. The same way that you have to make your mental challenges into physical challenges. When you're doing your homework--when you do your homework--just imagine that you're riding your bike, and you just have to push your way through."

~The King in the Window, by Adam Gopnik

The past two weeks have been physically horrendous. My lungs have felt as if they're on fire and an elephant is stepping on my chest, yet it's the medicine I use that keeps me awake even longer than usual.  If I nap, it generally takes two to three hours to fall asleep for one hour, and that's if no one comes in after a while.

When I get up, I feel nothing but guilt. Here's the thing, each day I rise, loving the day, wanting and needing to do so much, having a focused list. When I physically get out of bed, I am wheezing and hurting and exhausted (as I'm lucky to get four hours of interrupted sleep at one time) and everything is thrown back on the burner.

It's a vicious cycle, you know?  Such wasted time.

Luckily, I'm a reader, this keeps my mind structurally busy.  Writers must always read, otherwise, how can they know what readers want?  I rarely read fiction, but the past three years, I've been reading whatever my kids are reading. I love having the commonness and dialog.  

Ironically, the chose some great books, without knowing they've actually met the writers at a publishers' function or a writing conference I've been in, making us have a few more things to talk about.

After the Twilight series, Venice got into Glass and all the Ellen Hopkins' books.  She and I had a laugh when I told her she may have met her through our "Darcy," of the former Northern Nevada Family Magazine (don't ask!).  Oh, how I miss those days, before I was sick.

But that's the way it goes.  I read from The King in the Window about the lungs and making it mental, and though I know it's not in my mind, I love it.  And likewise, I love making the mental into a physical challenge.

You know how I said I was unable to concentrate clearly, unless I was reading? No?  Who cares, it's still true. Anyway, by putting what I need to do mentally, more or less, into a physical challenge, I see the beauty.  Combine this with my five minutes throughout the day, and even the worst days can be more productive.

My primary focus with true crime at the moment, is for sure Lue Vang and Sue Russell's Missing Mondays, which I was working on before Lue went missing. Lue, as you might remember, is a 17 year old from Carson City, Nevada, who has been missing since April 29, 2011.  There's a chance he's headed toward Seattle, but this is not a sure thing.  Wherever you are, keep your eyes open and spread the word.

To work on these cases (and the True Crime Fanatic website), I merely have to take five minutes at a time and instead of thinking of it as researching, asking questions, etc., I'll think of it as five minutes until I can rest again. Five minutes of staying busy, on task.

As for all the other work, well, my lungs are in pain and talking is not really such an option, so if it can't be done via text and email, it's just not happening.

Setback - Failure - Or...

It's been a difficult month for me, business-wise, as you may have noticed. Someone asked me how do I tell people around me that I failed at something I planned.  Fail?  I didn't fail!  I was positive, right? I didn't cry and whine [too much], right?  And... I tried. Since when is trying, and I do mean trying HARD a failure?

When you come to something that doesn't work, try, try again. And then try something else. You keep trying until you get it right or find a much better solution.

I won't go into what I most failed doing this month, but I can safely say it will be short-lived, and next month, I'll share what successes my failure brought me. 

Which, of course, makes it NOT a failure. What's a failure anyway?

For me, not writing is always a failure, my solution is to clean, and it works because everyone at home is happy and I love it because when the inspiration does or does not start and I write, I don't have a pile of dishes, a streak of dirt, or stinky laundry distracting me. 

But that is not a success story, not really.  

What if... I didn't write and things got in the way, and one day, while procrastinating and pretending like going on a cleaning binge is a positive alternative, a piece of glass cut deep into my foot?  What if I had to go to Urgent Care? What if the doctor there was a jerk and I asked to sit in the waiting room, waste more time, until there's a more competent doctor? What if the doctor came out, apologized, and I reluctantly agreed to go back?  What if... he said he was very sorry and normally there's no excuse, but this one time, he learned his brother's wife went out last night and didn't come home and what if the same doctor continued - gasp! (yes, even doctors give out strange and personal information at the oddest times) - and said "I just want to know where he hid the body. My own brother!"

I'm a true crime writer, as my kids say.  Yes, things like that happen all the time.  I'm not saying this is great to exploit him, I write for FREE!  I want to HELP. Yet, I admit, if the brother is guilty and his own brother had a feeling, and I learn about it first hand and before the police hear about, you betcha I'll be excited.  Don't judge me, it's natural, the stuff pumping through our vein!

That's one of those accidental success stories. They happen all the time.  For instance, why do you think Colonel Sander's picture is him of an OLD man?  Not only did he receive a thousand rejections for his chicken recipe before striking gold, but he also failed at pretty much everything he ever tried, including his short-lived attempt at kidnapping.  Through much more than I write here, he managed to succeed and indeed, his success outlived him.

Next time you fail at a goal you set for yourself, remember, it's only a moment and it will pass.

Check out these other famous business failures.