Pressing on To Meet our Goals

by Ruth Bonetti

Procrastination – let me count some ways:

Day Job (as in, don’t give up...) 

I’m grateful that teaching music has allowed ongoing income, where others have gnawed fingernails in an uncertain 2020. Ouch, the challenge to conquer technology platforms and teach online. I progressed from “Moi? Tech and I are incompatible!” to “OK, work is bread and butter.” Each day/week/month/term I grew confidence, skills, tricks. Brain exhausted. But jubilant that I could communicate in another way.

 

Online, I was welcomed into homes, met dogs, cats, goats, fish–and parents. Some thrived with parents at their elbows, reinforcing. One girl logged in from her vista on a Noosa beach. 

(Memo: time for down-time!)

A lad appeared with a box on his head. Students emailed photos of playing Last Post in driveways.

Dear readers, I survived the year. Now it's time for writing. Flick switch in head. Clunk.

Self-doubt

Are my ideas useful, words worth reading? WORSE. Meet its ugly sister:

 

Self-sabotage

It’s so hard to get a book published, to find an agent. OK, self-publish.

I’m a shy introvert, I hate marketing! People must think I’m always pushing my barrow, blowing my trumpet in their face.

It’s HARD to tempt people to buy a book. Let alone write a review. 

My last book burned me out. I’m a resting author.

 

                        Without Vision the people perish.
                        Without Vision the writers languish. 
 

Set Sensible Goals

Mid-year (and what a year it was!) I announced I would publish Book 3 of my Midnight Sun to Southern Cross saga in October. Que? Crazy. 

Plus, a children’s musical story is underway. (Um, I’m a musician but a less confident composer).

Committing to another book, St Lucia and the Art Deco Mansion: What drove the man who built it?  cranked me from stationary lethargy into first gear. My revised goal is early 2021. February? 

Because music teaching dries up in December-January (as do incomes) I have time – and NO excuses – to hone, polish, finesse.

 

Set do-able goals

Last week a reputable publisher offered an online pitch for children’s book submissions. After wasting time in a new-genre funk, the deadline approached and whoosh! Write, rewrite, cull, revise, rewrite, edit, run past supportive writing buddies (thanks, Jeanette O’Hagan and Debbie Terranova!), rethink, rewrite, prune to word count, edit, proof. Press SUBMIT! 

Eyes blurred, dry yet watery, muscles creak, RSI wrist. 

I met the goal!

One-Step-at-a-Time Goals

A picture book will grow into a musical story. I’m heartened to see a need for social-distanced, small-ensemble performances, as in There’s a Sea in My Bedroom. A when-the-time-is-right-later goal. 

 
Way-Out-of-Comfort-Zone Goals/ What’s-to-Lose Goals

A mentor taught me a lesson that illumines my teaching and life. I dedicated Sounds and Souls: How music teachers change lives to conductor John Curro. In it (and again in Midnight Sun, so life-changing was this experience) I tell the story:
 
While at university, John Curro, conductor of Queensland Youth Orchestra, sees that I need a challenge. The Copland concerto is virtuosic but also allows me to express the instrument’s singing tone and lyricism. There are altissimo register and jazzy syncopated rhythms to conquer. And John knows that I will enjoy exploiting its introvert and extrovert qualities.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the next round performance is two weeks away and I have not learned, let alone played, the Copland.’
‘There’s nothing to lose. You can fall back on Weber. Just do it.’
How I practise. Never have I worked so. I climb a technical Mount Everest; slay dragons of my weaknesses; my rhythmic vagaries are drilled into precision, altissimo register runs conquered. Day and night for a month I live, work, sleep and finally surmount the Copland Concerto. My performance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra is already a triumph; there is no apprehension about winning—I did so already. This is my moment, charged with electricity. I shine, ecstatic. 

 

Last year, the day of my students’ concert, “Big JC” was elevated to conduct celestial orchestras. I dedicated to him their performance of a seat-of-pants Boogie. Did they nail all the notes in the right places? No. Was it a riveting performance? Did they learn improv? Do they now welcome challenges? 

 

                                                    It’s time to stretch my writing muscle. 

                                What goals haunt the too-hard section of your mind and heart?

 “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14 NRSV) 

                St Paul didn’t always know where he was heading, but trusted God’s driving directions. 

 

Ruth Bonetti feels she's written all she can say (famous last words?) about her fields of music, performance and pedagogy. She's nearly done with award-winning historical biography/memoir. Her grandchildren inspire new horizons of children's picture books. 

Memo to self: a blog is ages overdue. 

Facebook pages (See also Music, Presentation) get more airplay. As sometimes does the magical realism channelling of a long dead great-uncle. 

Ditching the Black Dog

Photo copyright Susan J Bruce - all rights reserved

Do you ever find that the difficult patches in the writing life come at unexpected times?

The last part of October and the first part of November was an encouraging time for me. I won the unpublished manuscript section of the Caleb Prize and I flew to the Gold Coast on the following Monday to do a Margie Lawson writing Immersion. For those who don’t know, Margie is an international writing coach, and I was delighted when a place became available in one of her teaching weeks. And yes – it was AWESOME. 

Life was busy when I returned and I lost some of the rhythm that I had built up prior to doing the Immersion. Then I received some negative feedback, had a flare of some health issues and then for some reason I stopped writing. Discouragement struck – and I became stuck. The launch of If They Could Talk: Bible stories told by the animals, an anthology for which I was editor, helped lift my spirits. But even this milestone couldn't fix my writing doldrums.  

Maybe I’m the only one who goes through periods like this. Maybe the rest of you intrepid writers have it together and never feel like a four-wheel-drive bogged to the windows in Gobi desert sand. 

No? 

I also have to admit to a tincture of perfectionism somewhere in the mix. Perfectionism would be okay if we were perfect, wouldn’t it? Imagine a first draft that you never needed to revise. Ah, bliss! Cue serene music…

But back to reality.

Discouragement, seeded with grains of perfectionism, can lead to procrastination which leads to more discouragement and more procrastination, etc., etc., etc., which leads to hopelessness and before you know it, the black dog is something other than my cheeky Chihuahua/ Shihtzu cross pictured above.

I wrote nothing, playing a LOT of Sudoku instead. The only good thing that came from it was that I finally beat my husband’s best time on the online version of the game. We’re not at all competitive in our house by the way (cough). Other than that one moment of domestic triumph, I was sad to the core and didn’t know how to break myself out of the funk. 

Then I remembered a section of a book I’d recently read. A friend had mentioned Stephen Furtick’s book, Greater, a while ago and I was intrigued enough to buy a copy. In Greater, Furtick uses examples from the life of the prophet Elisha to encourage Christians to live out God’s vision for their life.

In chapter five, the author refers to the Bible passage, 2 Kings 3. King Joram of Israel enlists the help of King Jehoshaphat of Judah to fight the Moabite army. The problem is that after seven days of marching in the desert of Edom, they don’t have any water left for their animals or their troops. 

Jehoshaphat, being a godly king, asks Elisha to talk to God about their problem. Elisha agrees and God says something strange. He tells them that they won’t see wind or rain but He will make water flow from the hills in Edom. It is easy for God to do this. In several translations (e.g., the NASV) God tells them to make the valley full of trenches – i.e., dig a vast amount of ditches (2 Kings 3:16). 

Imagine being those people. There were no clouds in the sky, just heat and dust and a sense of hopelessness. Two vast armies on the verge of dying of thirst, and God tells them to start digging. It would seem counterintuitive in the extreme. Sweat and toil all night when there’s no visible way of having your need for water met. Yet they did it, and in the morning the valley was filled with water.

Furtick uses this as a prime example of how faith works. He writes: 

It’s as if God says, “If you really believe I’m going to do what I told you I would do, get busy. Show me your faith, and then I’ll show you My faithfulness. Do your part. If you do what I asked you to do, I will be faithful to My word. 

(Greater, p. 66)

I agree with Furtick, but I also think it's one of the best metaphors I’ve ever read on the nature of the writer’s life. 
We need to believe in what we are doing and act on that belief. Most of us reading this have felt the call to write. We know God wants us to do this. So we need to do it, even if the ideas have dried up and the words we thirst for elude us. When discouragement invades and we feel like giving up, we need to seek God. And when we do, we need to act. Even if it's writing just a few words at a time. 

In this instance of depression God told me to ‘remember’. Remember that I have called you. Remember what I’ve promised you. Remember that I love you. Now go and do your thing. Write in faith: one word after another and I will fill your words with my life. Dig the ditches and I will send my rain.

And so I write – and the black dog morphs back into a naughty puppy again – and I have hope. 

How about you. Do you have times in your life where writing is hard? What helps? Does 'digging ditches' work for you? Let's encourage each other in the comments below.

Reference: S. Furtick, Greater: Dream bigger. Start smaller. Ignite God’s vision for your life., Multnomah Books, Colorado, 2017.

Susan J. Bruce, aka Sue Jeffrey, spent her childhood reading, drawing, and collecting stray animals. Now she’s grown up she does the same kinds of things. Sue works part time as a veterinarian, writes stories filled with themes of overcoming, adventure and belonging, and loves to paint animals. Sue won the Short section of the inaugural Stories of Life writing competition and recently won the 'Unpublished Manuscript' section of the 2018 Caleb prize. Sue is the editor of 'If They Could Talk: Bible Stories Told By the Animals' (Morning Star Publishing) and her stories and poems have appeared in multiple anthologies. Her e-book 'Ruthless The Killer: A Short Story' is available on Amazon.com. You can check out Sue’s animal art on Facebook.

A Cure for Procrastination

by Margaret Lepke

Procrastination seems to be the bane of many writers, and it was the first word that popped into my head when I asked the Lord for a topic. Much has been written about it already, but maybe another angle won’t hurt.

I used to be the queen of last minute sprints because I left things too late. ‘I have weeks to finish this... There’s no hurry... I’ll just get a drink (or a snack)... I’ll just do this or that or the other before...‘ I always had a lot of reasons why I didn’t have to start right away, and none of them were meant to be excuses. My brain just had this uncanny ability to fudge facts when it came to time management, and the result was inevitable: last minute writing dashes that just had to succeed somehow. I can’t recount how many nights I spent sitting at my computer, typing away madly, trying to make up for lost time. But most of that is now in the past because of two unexpected encounters.

The first one involved a conversation with a dear old family friend. She lives overseas, and we stay in touch by phone. Not only is she an old friend, she is also a literally old friend; in her 89^th year when she told me this story: ‘We had a festival down at the harbour yesterday, and I was looking forward to going all week. But when the time came, I didn’t feel too great and started making excuses:  I don’t feel like getting changed…I could watch it on TV tomorrow… What’s an old woman doing walking around the harbour at night anyway… But you know me; I’m like a weed that keeps popping up. My body won’t obey as it used to, but I told that inner Schweinehund of mine to shut up and ship out.' [Schweinehund = pig dog = a metaphorical antagonist that lives within.] We had a laugh. ‘You can’t allow yourself too many excuses,’ she continued, ‘otherwise life passes you by. You have to make yourself get on with it. So I told myself, Just do it!  I got up, got dressed, hopped on the 8 o’clock train, and ended up having a jolly good time. Guess when I got back home? It wasn’t before midnight.’

This old lady has always had a great deal of spunk and humour – two qualities that by God’s grace helped her survive the horrors of war. Throughout my life I have admired her for both, and so I took my cue from her spunk and started addressing the ‘pig dog’ that lives within me (don’t be fooled, we all have one). As I took charge and gained more and more control over this ugly adversary, I also remembered a folksy proverb my mother used to quote: ‘Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ In German it has a perfect rhyme that makes it memorable, and as you can see, I haven’t forgotten, even after many decades. Every reminder helps.

The second encounter involved the Word of God when I looked for scriptures that might help me keep up the momentum. ‘Go to the ant, you sluggard,’ I read, ‘Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.’ Proverbs 6:6-8 (NKJV). The sluggard part hit me like a thunderbolt (the NLT uses lazybones) - I certainly didn’t want to be one of those! - and then Ephesians 5:15-17 sealed the deal: “Be very careful then how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” I had no more excuses.

For those of you who are interested in actual strategies for managing procrastination, here’s a great link: http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=50. As for me, I decided to follow my friend’s Just do it! method and determined not to let that pig dog win. I now write to-do lists and place the most unpleasant tasks at the top. Then I take a big breath and tell myself, “Just do it!” and get started. Once on a roll, it’s fairly easy to keep going, and I love ticking off task after task and having a clean slate by nightfall (most nights, anyway). No more big projects looming over my head, misplaced anxieties or late-night pressure sessions. If I do stay up late these days, it’s because of choice, not because of necessity.  

And finally, the biggest bonus of all: I achieve so much more! I’ve even found time to develop a new website to publish resources by various authors. It’s a work in progress, and there are lots of articles and eBooks on my list still waiting to be polished and uploaded, but without procrastination I will get there in good time – and that’s exciting. You may like to download and study the FREE eBook  Eternity to Eternity by Dr John Ecob. He did a superb job and included many excellent charts.

Now I will schedule this blog post for Monday and hope that at least some of what I have written will be of benefit to you...

Margaret Lepke reaches many people through her blatantly Christian professional website.

She blogs at Dr Margaret’s Treasure Chest  and is currently developing an Internet platform for sound Christian teaching at BiblicalPublications.org