Reality is Terrifying

The pro bono project is still sitting on my desk. I have not developed my very (very) basic understanding of Dreamweaver into something useful–like a website. My lunch date tripped over her dog and was in the hospital getting forehead stitches during our scheduled slot. Then other disasters struck in her life and we still haven’t rescheduled.  I spent two weeks (my last post was the midpoint) panicking about everything, then stopped.

On the upside, I still have a home office, the web content I wrote remains written, and I have made progress on the training manual. And I stopped panicking. After I stopped, I called a writer I have never spoken to before (though I’ve had her number in my phone for over two years) and offered to buy her lunch. On Friday, my unfortunate dog-owning colleague wanted to know why I hadn’t called the other writer she suggested, whose number I have had for over a month now (answer: I am a chickensh*t).

But I’m on a roll. I talked to a friend who gave notice two weeks ago. He’s going solo with substantial obligations at home. How did he do it? He decided to view fear as exhilarating, and exercise a lot of faith. It seems worth trying. I bought a book: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I read it cover to cover in about 1.5 hours, then surprised the heck out of my fiance by completely ignoring him so I could focus on my writing. He hasn’t seen me do that since… ever? Then the writer I don’t know called me back. Not only is she willing to accept food in exchange for information about the freelance writing life, and how she got started, she even mentioned putting me in contact with People. Twice. I have no idea who People is, but I definitely want to talk to him, her or them. Maybe they like lunches, too.