Idle Hands do the Devil's Work

Here's the major obstacle I face daily: motivation.

Now, today's a busier-than-average workday; I've got 4 stories on my list to complete today, as well as making updates to the theatre group website I manage. But it just makes the motivation problem harder to deal with. I feel overwhelmed, stressed and panicked, so instead of attacking the pile of work I have to get through, I find time to do just about anything else.

It's 1:42 pm, and so far I've done two interviews (which were work-related--I'll give myself that), walked the dog, talked to my Mom for an hour and a half, created several new iTunes playlists, paid a medical bill, balanced my checkbook, meticulously examined a library of and then downloaded some cool new wallpapers for my iPhone ... and wrote just one of the four pieces I need to file today.

I need to get at least two more finished so I can invoice my client for the work in April. Instead, I sit here, blogging. After I post this, I'm off to write a quick post on my other blog, Everyday Rebellion, about women in software development/programming, and my revenue-generating activities will be put on hold once again.

Time is Money

I haven't been here in a while. I was swamped with work, which was awesome. Then I was stricken with a 36-hour stomach virus, which was decidedly not awesome. And then I had to scramble through "catch-up" mode to get back to the place I was 3 weeks ago.

So. As I'm sure you've guessed, I've been writing. I've been going to my yoga classes regularly, and since spring has finally sprung here in Philly, Mr. Savant and I have been doing tons of yard work. Our 100-year-old house was getting overgrown. Though we are only the 4th owners, it seemed each previous resident decided to plant something completely invasive that grows at supersonic speed, is hideously ugly and also nearly impossible to get rid of.

We'll take as an example the English Ivy that seemed so charming and quaint when we bought the house, curling around the stone, adding a lush punch of green through fall and winter. But damn, that stuff grows quickly. Over trees, rocks, tools left absentmindedly in a garden 75 years ago (no, really. We found a 75 year old hammer.), over wood and into window screens ... it's incredible and terrifying.

Mr. Savant looked up the instructions for English Ivy removal, and found that we needed gloves, a couple rakes, loppers, clippers and ... a blowtorch.

Last year we removed a wisteria tree whose reach was so great I swore it was trying to move itself to the next block. This year our goal was to remove 100 years worth of ugly yew hedges, poison-ivy-covered lilac bushes and hellishly tangled forsythia from along the back property line. We broke two chainsaws, a set of hedge clippers, one rake, 3 fingernails, my right knee (okay, it was just a bad strain, but I couldn't straighten my leg for two days) and Mr. Savant's sanity.

Nestled in between the foliage in the Suburban Forest of No Return were old concrete window sills from an old sugar refinery -- at least that's what our neighbor tells us. He's lived next door to this house for 40+ years.

Today, I wrote two pieces, one on the potential impact of Oracle's bid to buy Sun Microsystems and a second piece on a study done by a networking security vendor. This security vendor is one of my favorites to work with. Their director of marketing is a fantastic guy, and I always enjoy talking to him. He's always punctual, he sends me background material and hooks me up with great secondary sources, if I need them. He's what a PR person should be. He also goes beyond the extra mile, and he'll often suggest story ideas to me that arent' necessarily related to 'pimping' his employer. This company does a lot of research studies with their reseller and partners communities and it's always fascinating to see what the results are.

So, here's to you, you Excellent Epitomes of Good PR Professionals. Hat tip.

When I got done, I installed solar lights on my deck, did some laundry, made dinner, and Mr. Savant ran a new Ethernet line downstairs to my new office. Oh, I didn't mention that, did I?

Mr. Savant and I previously shared an office on the second floor. However, we also have a sunroom off our our kitchen that has a half bath attached, great sunlight, access to the deck ... so I decided over the weekend to move my base of operations. Damn, is it awesome. I have a couch in here now, all my books, 4 giant windows with views of my yard, and my own bathroom. The only thing I didn't have was a consistent wireless signal. Mr. Savant saves the day.

Now, to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream, and then to wake, perchance to write. Tomorrow I'll work on two pieces for my biggest magazine client, and then I've scheduled interviews for two other clients' stories. And then tomorrow night -- yoga class.

Working My Ass Off

I was raised to believe that your work ethic is central to who you are.  That's it's right to go above and beyond. To not simply perform a task but to excel at it. That working your fingers to the bone was the way a person proved their worth to society. That to be successful meant you moved politely up a corporate ladder, you put in your 40 (or 60 or 80) hours per week and then, at the end of your working life, you were rewarded.

Those who didn't take this path were Dirty Fucking Hippies. Flaky, whack-job artists. Writers. No one ever made money pursuing what they loved. You had to pay your dues, or The Man would be displeased. We wouldn't want to upset The Man.

Or, they were just plain lazy. Welfare queens. Parasites whose thirst for a handout was quenched by the sweat of the righteous, hard-working everyman. 

Very Ayn Rand. Very, very right wing. Very much my Dad's philosophy.

I wholly rejected most of his philosophy. In fact, I'm basically a socialist. I went to a tiny liberal arts college where I had the absolute gall to major in (gasp) English Literature and minor in Journalism. 

Oh, the screaming fights. Oh, the threats and the ultimatums. But that's another story.

What I did accept from my father's worldview was the belief in hard work. In knowing how to fulfill obligations completely and exceed expectations. In short, I work my ass off. I am not the best at what I do, quite honestly. There are writers and editors far more talented and prolific than I -- and I know this.

But what I lack in talent I make up for with sheer will and dedication. Which is why I'm always surprised to discover incompetence in people I have to work with. 

Employees that manage to hold onto their full-time, salaried, benefits-laden jobs in spite of the fact that they don't show up for meetings. Or they consistently 'forget' to e-mail important background information. Or, despite my detailed requests to speak to specific executives or subjects I need to interview, do not follow through, or schedule meetings with folks who have knowledge that's completely irrelevant to what I'm working on.  

And yes, all of these things have happened to me this week with various clients for whom I'm supposedly writing Hugely Incredibly Massively Important Pieces Without Which Their Business Will Fail. But they can't get their shit together enough to hire a competent administrative assistant? Sales and marketing coordinator? WTF?!

How is it that these folks can fail so blatantly and do so repeatedly, without apparent consequence? 

I've seen it my entire career, actually, people that 'fail up,' being promoted instead of fired to mitigate the damage they could cause were they left to continue on their current trajectory of ineptitude. 

I'm as much of a slacker and a procrastinator as anyone. There are absolutely days when I reschedule all my appointments, feign sickness and spend the day in front of the TV watching Law & Order reruns and badly dubbed Kung-Fu movies on TV while inhaling Doritos. But I've seen so much incompetence this week, and I'm thoroughly disgusted. Ugh.

It's reason I'm quite happy to work for myself. At least I trust my boss to do the right thing. 

Let the Devil take the hindmost

What a day yesterday. Wrote a piece on Microsoft's intent to let Windows XP continue to live on, despite its planned retirement of the operating system this May.

Then I had a doctor's appointment to make sure my Zoloft is still doing its job.

I came home and fucked around on Facebook, walked the dog, and watched it piss down rain for the billionth day in a row. At 2, the dog went to the vet.

Dropped her off at home and headed out to Downingtown to pick up an area rug I found on Craigslist. I stupidly decided to drive Route 30 straight out the Main Line, which was charming and quaint and really, really fucking slow. Took me an hour and a half to get out there, and then I hit rush hour on the way back.

Cars, smog, honking, jackasses cutting off other jackasses, accidents, tolls ... this is why I am so incredibly pleased that I don't commute. I got my fill of driving in THAT for the next year or so.

Today's typical. I have two pieces slated to file for my biggest, steadiest client, a biz/tech mag based in New York. They're short pieces, one's on storage and data deduplication and the other's on a consumer backup appliance that's been retooled for the small business market. Cool.

Then I've got a kick-off call/interview for a profile piece I'm writing for a client (a popular online job search site), and another kick-off call later this afternoon with a couple executives from another client (a midsized networking firm.)

Also typical -- I'm slacking, procrastinating and am completely behind schedule. I'll be lucky if I get through my second story by 2 pm. The laundry's piling up, I haven't run the dishwasher in a couple days and I have to clean my office. Ugh.

See? Not glamourous at all.

Idiom of the day: Let the Devil take the hindmost

All in a day's work.

What a lovely Sunday.

Hauled myself to my level II/III yoga class this morning. The class kicked my ass. I still feel wrung out, and it's been five and a half hours.

Yoga is the one form of exercise I've been able to stick with. I started in 1998 with a couple videos. I practiced off and on (and off) and only started taking formal classes in 2005. I've experimented with Ashtanga and Vinyasa, but I'm currently taking classes that are Anusara-influenced and I love it. I want to teach yoga someday.

Other thrilling happenings: I ran some errands, I did some shopping and some yard work, walked the dog, cleaned up the house.

Tomorrow I'll squeeze in a couple articles in between a doctor's appointment, a meeting with our financial advisor and taking the dog to the V-E-T.

For now, it's time to sit on the porch with a glass of wine and enjoy spring.

Idiom of the Day: All in a day's work.

Penny for your thoughts.

I'm a writer. Not the glamorous kind, with three-martini lunches and publicists and fan mail and hate mail and mystery. Not the tortured kind of chain-smoking, long-suffering, pale and too-thin poet. I'm not even the kind that works on The Great American Novel during lunch breaks at my ultra-responsible corporate job.

Nope. I'm what's sometimes referred to as a "freelance commercial writer." Or, I'm a word whore. I'll write whatever someone pays me to write. Marketing brochures, magazine articles (both under my own byline and ghost-written), profiles of executives no one's ever heard of. You pay me, I'll write it, from grass-fed beef to new data storage technology.

It's not romantic. But fuck, it's fun. I love my job. I can make my own hours, take on as much or as little work as I want (or need), and there's something different every day. Of course, there's also the torture of invoicing and waiting to be paid. The anxiety of bidding for projects and hoping the potential client will choose you.

But it's worth it. It allows me to be all the other things that I am: a yogi, a wife, a knitter, a sister, a cook, a best friend. My job lets me take my dog for long walks and take half days off to ransack local thrift stores. Or watch awful Lifetime movies at 2 pm on a Tuesday. Or meet my husband for lunch near his office.

I'm planning to write about the extraordinary and the mundane in my life, both writing-related and not.

Idiom of the day: 'A penny for your thoughts.'