WRITING JOURNEY: FINISHING YOUR GOALS

One of my biggest issues is finishing. I get all excited about a project then something else comes up and I'm off on that one. This month I decided I wanted to finish then move on to the next project.

I’m currently working on a manuscript and I’m doing the final read through before I hand it over to my beta reader. I’ve let everything get in front of it and before I knew it, January was over and I’m now into February.

The other day I read a post from Michael Hyatt who wrote about prioritizing your to do list. He offers some good advice that I used last week and it really helped me see what I need to do first and what I could work on later.

First you write down your to do list, then you go down the list and mark it with the following.

A – Urgent and Important
B – Important Not Urgent
C- Urgent not Important
D – Not urgent or important

This helped me a lot to see where I was messing around with and what I seriously needed to tackle. I thought I’d share it with you.

Do you have a system that works for you on completing your goals for the day?

Dealing With Grief Part 4

Grief Never Ends

Did you know there is no deadline on grief?  Yes it will get a little easier each day, but from everyone I’ve talked to, the grief is still there, five, ten, twenty even fifty years later.

It kind of makes me feel ok to know that my grief is fine.  Some days I get out of bed and I’m fine.  I think a happy thought about my mother and I keep on stepping.  Today wasn’t one of those days.  I got in the car and I thought about her and the tears began to flow.  I welcomed them because I hadn’t cried in a few weeks.  I thought I was doing good. 

I missed her today.  I wanted to call her up and hear her voice.  I think that’s the hardest part about her being gone.  When I was in the Navy my first time away from home, I would save up my money so I could call home.  I was in Guam before cell phones.  You had to pay for long distance calls.  I couldn’t wait until Saturday morning when I’d call home and hear my mama’s voice.  Then I’d know everything would be alright.

There’s just something about your mother’s voice to let you know, life isn’t so bad.  I miss that tone.  I miss our catching up with each other.  I miss our sharing gossip and her telling me what she bought on QVC.

I know it will get a little easier, but I still miss our conversations.

It’s Ok to feel like this some days.  It took me a minute to realize this.  I wanted to get over these feelings and move on.  That’s how I handle things.  I don’t let stuff keep me down.  I try to stay positive. 

Grief isn’t like that.  You can remain positive, but you also have to deal with the grief.  You have to let it out or it will consume you. You’ll find yourself on the couch and never moving.

No it doesn’t end, but you can live with it.  I do it everyday and I will continue to do it because I loved my mother and I know she’d want me to continue enjoying my life.  So today I’m going to think happy thoughts and get through my grief.

What do you miss about your love ones?

I did a series on grief.  If you’re going through it right now please read.  I hope it gives you some comfort.

http://lashaunda.blogspot.com/2012/02/dealing-with-grief.html

THE BUSINESS JOURNEY: What’s In A Name?

When I decided to discuss my business journey I wanted to share my mistakes as well as my successes.  One of my mistakes when I started SORMAG was not having a vision.  I talked about that in a previous post. 

I never dreamed SORMAG would be online for 12 years.  I figured it would be a fun project.  I never dreamed I would make money from it or go past the first year.

If I’d known about vision I would have known to look beyond what I see right now and think about the next five – ten years.

Had I known I’d still be here. I wouldn’t have named the magazine Shades of Romance.  When I started I was about promoting multi-cultural romances.  Many of the writers I promoted moved on to writing mainstream fiction which meant I began to promote mainstream fiction.

I will admit I tried to change the name to Shades Of Reading, but my readers refuse to adopt the name, as a matter of fact, they stopped calling it Shades Of Romance and started calling it SORMAG to my disbelief.  I wanted to use the acronym SORM but sometimes you have to listen to your readers. 

My advice to you:

·         Give the name of your business serious thought.

·         Is this the  name you see for your business 5 – 10 years from now?

·         Is this the name your business can have as it advances in the future?

·         Is this the name your customers will use?

The name of your business is important and it should be created after much consideration.

My last bit of advice, if you plan on being online; make sure you secure your domain name before someone else does.  If you have a long name, like Shades Of Romance, use the acronym – sormag.com

When I created SORMAG someone had shadesofromance.com so I had to come up with something else. Thankfully sormag.com was available and was a lot easier to remember than shadesofromance.com.  Sometimes mistakes work out for the best.

What’s the name of your business?