Skip to main content

Keep your plans secret for now

Several years ago, I received what was perhaps the worst piece of fortune cookie advice ever, "keep your plans secret for now." The problems stemming from this advice are myriad.
  • When does "now" end?
  • Which plans?
  • Secret from whom?

Okay, maybe not myriad, but three. Somehow I chose to keep all my plans secret from everyone forever. Which makes it kind of hard to act on them, you know? It's easy to not move forward, not even make plans, if I'm keeping them to myself. There's no commit there, no failure to live up to promise. It's too easy.

So now, for the whole world, I say this:

  • I have a novel (okay, I have about seven, and they're all in rough draft). I plan to edit it, and get it published.
  • Mmmm, black belt. Me want. A little scared of how it might change me, but we'll work through that.

There, not secrets any more. That felt good.

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: August 2023

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful.  "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book.  LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di

In Progress -- July 2023

  Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Nothing but thoughts.  Short Stories:  As I mentioned last month I had a dish-washing epiphany on a story that wasn't going well. I'd already changed the POV character, but I knew that wasn't enough because I had no ending. It has an ending now.  Critted  4  Got back  0    I really need to post something new. Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   1 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Finally finished the danglers and minor seaming and chose buttons, then had to wait to block because the space I normally block in needed to be cleared, and this would be very disruptive to my work, so I waited to block it for the night before I went on vacation. It would appear that the finishing of this sweater took 4 months, which may be a new record. It fits for the most part. Yay!  Cathar  (self). Started the month just about done with the body edging.