Friday, January 28, 2011

Anniversary Party

My first blog post was exactly a year ago. So I'd planned a where-are-we-now, what's-happened-in-a-year  post for today. On Wednesday I worked five hours in a favorite cafe. It started with a meeting with a writing friend/crit partner, and then on my own I delved into Our Spirit. I saw another friend walk by and she joined me for a couple of hours. At one point in our conversation, she told me she'd been thinking about me, specifically about the blog – how flattering that someone was thinking about my blog – and more specifically that she was concerned that Going with the Flow was exactly the wrong message.


I talked about how a few years ago I was in a filmmaking group in NYC with the name Making It Happen. During my time with the group I turned a screenplay into a novel and had so much fun with the novel that I did more and more prose writing until most of my time was writing and not filmmaking. I still produce short films for Our Spirit... but my passionest passion is prose. I was no longer interested in making a film career happen. I celebrated the flow that got me to novels.

My friend talked about the power of making a decision. Paraphrasing... of just doing it.

Okay. I get it.

I'm not here by accident. The flow didn't just splash me up on a rock. Goals and decisions have power.

I'm making the decision to move on querying novel #1. I'm picturing exactly what I want - representation for a novel about a romantic tangle of three high school guys.

What about my other projects – editing novel #2, first draft of novel #3, a new website, Our Spirit? I trust the flow.

And you guys? Is there tension between going with the flow and setting goals?

(I Googled "huh?" and found this image from Dangerous With A Pen, the blog of writer Lindsey Brooks. Now I'm a follower.)

13 comments:

  1. I like going with the flow more than making it happen but I error on the side of flow, making it happen is my challenge. Always working on it. I will try to picture what it looks like.

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  2. I think I'm more of a make-it-happen kind of guy who goes-with-the-flow when things don't go my way. Congrats on 1 year in the blogosphere!

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  3. Wait, I did not realize we started blogging at almost the same time. It's funny how much happened in those early days of my blog...and Heather kept telling me about her amazing friend Robert and then you emailed me and I read novel #1 and I loved it and then I bugged you for six months to query and then....

    Let me put it this way: THIS POST MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY.

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  4. And somehow I neglected to say

    HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

    I missed my own...

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  5. Ha! How funny that you found my blog by Googling "Huh?" Hehehe... give me a minute... I'm giggling.

    I actually started blogging just about a year ago as well, at the beginning of Jan 2010. I go with the flow by design... with full time job and two small kids, the writing is not always at the top of the list, but I keep at it, sometimes little by little. :)

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  6. What a journey. Happy Anniversary!

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  7. Decisions and choices have a powerful impact on everything we do. What we decide upon guides us through the course of our lives, and can help to shape our destiny.

    Keep us posted on how the querying goes.

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  8. Happy Anniversary. I try to move by goals and decisions but sometimes the flow pulls in a different direction and I just have to follow it.

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  9. I like your going with the flow title. It's sort of a reminder that the less you fight things the more energy you have to put into them. That's been my take on your blog title.
    I think you can have goals and be very directed and still go with the flow. Happy Anniversary!!

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  10. What a great journey... congrats on your anniversary!

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  12. Thanks for all the anniversary wishes!

    Our corner of the blogosphere is very cool.

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  13. I think it's wise that you're open to new roads. If we staunchly stick with something, even if we learn it's not the right path, then where's the joy in that? I think you're attitude is perfect.

    Fingers crossed for your query!!!

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