January Musings

Much as it sometimes pains me to say it, I'm no longer really the kind of person that sets goals... if I ever was, that is. People that talk to me one-to-one on even a semi-regular basis hear this all the time from me, but I don't have this innate urge other people seem to have to "do something with my life" or "make something of myself". I don't particularly like being busy or having a lot to do. I'm not a big fan of attention or of knowing that others are counting on me either. If I didn't have to worry about earning money, I wouldn't even have a job or care much about getting anywhere practical with my writing.

I know how sad that sounds, but... that's me. I'm simple. I'm low-maintenance. There isn't a whole lot I need in order to be happy beyond the basics. All that said, I'm a hard person to motivate. I really do have to just have to decide I'm ready to do things in my own good time. That's exactly why New Year's resolutions aren't a huge thing for me. However, I do kind of like to touch base with myself at some point during the month of January anyway, the better to think about what's been working for me and what hasn't.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Social media is a veritable paradise for the avid people watcher. Because what one does is incredibly public while feeling like it's not quite happening in reality, there's a lot you can tell about someone by looking at not only what they say over social media, but how they say it. You can see exactly how they want to come across to other people, but if you're paying attention, you can also see all the ways their online image isn't quite in line with who they really are underneath.

I'm relatively open with others about how I treat my social media accounts and how I view the people on my contact lists. I've even openly compared scrolling through Facebook in particular to watching a bunch of fish swimming around in a bowl. I don't consider myself to be much of a people person, but I do enjoy people watching. People watching is most interesting when people have more or less forgotten they're being observed and pondered in such a way. The things I've learned have taught me a lot about the way others operate... and about how I fit into that dynamic as well.

........

That said, I don't really tend to spend a ton of time on social media once the holidays roll around. Everyone tends to put on one or two of the same acts and that gets tiresome. I barely even bothered to check my feeds over this past Thanksgiving weekend. Over this past year, I've been able to upgrade my client roster a bit so that I'm only dealing with high caliber clients willing to pay for top-notch content. That said, I was easily able to take five days off to celebrate the holiday.

Quality Over Quantity

As usual, the beginning of another month has simply sped by and I'm just kind of left wondering what happened. I can't believe we're already ten days into November. Really, I'm going to take too long turning around one of these days and it will be Thanksgiving. Such is life when you keep relatively busy, I suppose.

As you may already be aware if you ever check in with me at my freelancing blog, The Creative Cat, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time in several years, as I finally have time for it, at least in theory. I'd been trying for some time to get my entire client base to a point where everyone I work with is paying premium pricing for my content and earlier in the year, I finally succeeded. I've been able to cut my overall workload in half as a result, meaning I now have actual time for creative endeavors of my own. 

I have to say, actually having time for something like NaNo in particular has been really pleasant. I'm working on a short story and poetry collection called Jar of Lies and so far it's going pretty well. I'm really happy with some of the ideas and think quite a few of them have some real potential. Others are just plain fun to work with, which is also OK. I'm a little bit behind on my word count at present, but it's nothing that I won't be able to easily make up this week. I don't actually have a deadline on the books for today, so should be able to make a nice, big dent in it this afternoon sometime.