July Thunks

What a month – and it’s only the 7th day of it.

I said in one of my earlier posts that I had planned on doing a lot of writing this month in lead up to redoing older books with new additions, breaking some of them down into a series, and writing up ideas that I’ve had in my head for years, but have never done anything much with except to make lots of notes!

Those were great plans.

Then the heat wave came and stayed. I don’t do well when it’s over 85 and it was near 100 for most of the week. I was inside in air conditioning which gave me some time to think but one day when I had my dog out I managed to touch something that somehow my body didn’t like. I have no idea what it was I touched, but I didn’t have gardening gloves on because it was too hot. I developed a contact rash, hives, etc. so I took a Benadryl, which I hate doing, but it made the itch go away – and also left me feeling foggy.

I got over that only to be facing more days near 100 and when I was out with my dog again, something bit me. I have no idea what it was at 7 o’clock in the morning but something I couldn’t see bit me. I came in, sat down, and I saw hives or swellings, traveling along veins on my arms and legs. and itching like crazy. So what did I do? I took another Benadryl. The itching and swelling stopped, but my brain went foggy again.

One would think this might give me time to sit around and think but all I could think of that was how much I hate taking Benadryl and how much I hate how hot it is. That’s not conducive to getting book writing done.

I did play around with some ideas because my accountability buddy was around and we plugged away at this, even though I was foggy, and I discovered something that I’ve probably known before, but didn’t verbalize.

Often when I pick a topic to write on, it’s because I’m interested in it and very few people buy those books – and in my foggy brained state, I finally said I am going to do it the way everybody suggests which is find a topic that I’m interested in but is a topic or take where people actually buy the books!!

So – I’ve been doing some research on topics that people actually spend money on. But I’ve also decided I have to semi-like the topic – it has to bring me some amount of joy. The joy can be the challenge of writing on something that doesn’t interest me all that much, but I have to work that one out myself.

I realized I had done that before, but I was getting paid for it. One of the things I recounted to my friend was when I worked for a major consulting firm in the Boston area where we bid on government contracts, we very often were writing proposals on topics that none of us knew very much about. This was before the Internet so you had to do some quick research and write quickly – we won a lot of those contracts so I know I can write and write quickly on topics where I’m kind of semi interested…..

That is my goal and my big thunk for July. I can actually pick a topic I don’t love. I just have to like it and know that other people want to read about it – and make it a fun challenge for myself to write a book, an interesting book, on that topic – that is a successful breakthrough for me and that is what I am going to do during the rest of July.

AND – the heat wave is gone for now!!