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Professional Jealousy Continued…
I should be sleeping right now. I tried. Honest. I did. But my mind doesn’t seem to ever stop spinning with new thoughts and ideas – and so I listen to audio books before bed. Or (and don’t laugh) I practice astral projection through guided hypnosis. But tonight – it was an audio book. A book I’ve read 3 times. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And that is why I am once again awake and writing this post (when I really, really should be sleeping).
I love this book. I always think of it when I’m writing Twilight & Tea. In fact, when people ask me what my book is about – I usually just say – well, it’s a memoir along the same lines as Eat, Pray, Love. Which is the truth – except after listening to 10 minutes of the audio book tonight – I feel like every chapter I’ve written over the past couple of months is crap and I should just start all over again. Or give up cause I’m never going to write like Elizabeth Gilbert. But then I remember Sue Bender.
Sue Bender is an adventurer and story teller like me. Once she went to live with the Amish in search of balance, simplicity, and happiness from people who “value the ordinary as an end in itself”. In her book Everyday Sacred, she talks about how she’s spent her life wishing she could write like Joan Didion. And that when she finally met Joan Didion at an American Booksellers Association Convention and told her that story, Joan said “And I’ve Always wished I could write like Henry James”.
And that’s the reason I’m going to keep on writing.
P.S. No one ever told me how exhausting & draining real writing would be.
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Erica OGrady is the CXO of Peanut Butter Media. She is currently HOMELESS while working on a project called Twilight & Tea. Erica is a Writer, Adventurer, Explorer who Still Believes in Santa and Following Your Bliss -- For more information Text ERICAOGRADY to 50500
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Congratulations on discovering some of that human and positive discontent as you consider your writing. I always promise my internal editor a chance to comment on my writing, but only after I get it finished. In the meantime, I keep reminding myself that the part of me that thinks i can do better is why anything I write this year is probably better than what I wrote last year.
First, though, is to finish the project's first draft….. Keep on plugging away and do not worry about how hard it is – Heinlein once speculated hat only 25% of the people who are motivated to write a book will finish the first draft.
Keep going. You can do this.