Anna DeStefano's Blog

Focus and feelings… They have a lot to do with things, when your trade is creating imaginary people and places and lives. I’ve made a career out of both fiction and non-fiction, and the biggest difference I’ve discovered between the two has been how deeply the way that I’m feeling affects my focus on my work.

I’ve often discussed with my agent how much easier it is for me to “plug in” to a non-fiction project on the fly, especially during those times when my heart and soul can’t beat in time with whatever make believe fictional world I’m painting.  It’s been good for me the last five years to have a balance, between teaching and writing to teach and even some ghost writing gigs, and my fiction work. The last couple of years have been crazy. Both halves of my writing “business” have taken off like gang busters, sometimes too quickly at entirely the wrong times, but I was in no position to complain and never did (except sometimes to my friends, when I was sure no one else was listening). This is the third and, hopefully, last career change I’ll make in my life, and I’m a girl who embraces being thankful and grateful and working her butt off while opportunity’s striking.

So, now, here I am, writing for two fiction publishers, expanding two different series of my own creation, travelling when asked to speak to groups who think I have something to teach them about writing, even getting paid for the privilege more often than not now, and pitching my first non-fiction writing project to an interested publisher. A great start to this new chapter in my life, five years out from my first publishing “call.” Time to settle into a quick and productive routine that both the creative and analytical sides of my brain clearly thrive on, right?

Except… Isn’t it interesting, that it’s often when we expect to feel most settled and productive, that life decides to shake things up, just to make sure we’re paying attention. To show us that quick isn’t always the way, even when we’ve finally proven to ourselves that we’re more than capable of excelling at meeting even the toughest deadlines. And to remind us that productive means so much more than mastering whatever routine we’re so sure defines all that we can be. Sometimes, it just comes down t how you’re feeling…

As I take a closer look at what “Revising a Year” will mean for me, I accept that quick will always be essential. That’s the publishing business. But I’m seeing that time is more of a relative term now.  A matter of priority. I’ve been forced to adjust expectations for what will get my immediate attention lately, and what will achieve a better result if I give it more time, not less. And going for that best result is what’s feeling right now, not getting something new out the door as fast as I can–something that is very close to the best I could do, but not quite there, because there just wasn’t enough hours in the few days I gave myself to get it done.

And productive will always be what I want others to see when they look at my work. They’ll see me working hard and being true to my commitments and being the dependable and honest person they already know, still striving for the best quality I can deliver in whatever I’m doing . But this year more than the last five, it’s the quality I’ll be putting before the rest, when it’s time to commit to appearances and dates and deadlines and so forth. Not how much I can do how fast, but rather how to get the best of me where it needs to be at the right time for the projects I’m working on and the amazing people I’m working for. That’s what my career will mean this year. And going forward, I suspect.

If you’ve been following along, you know some of these “revising” decisions, about my schedule at least, were taken out of my hands last month. When a doctor tells you there’s a significant chance your next year will be about multiple surgeries and procedures that might make you sicker before they cure the diagnosis you may or may not have, it’s a pivotal moment. On the other side of that, and the surgery I had to agree to in order to rule out the scary diagnosis (which I found out yesterday they have–YAY!!!), I view the year before me very much changed, nonetheless. You can learn a lot in a month about how very important it is it check in with your feelings, before you give away every hour of your day to something else.

For a month now, I’ve had to make hard decisions and see what matters most in my life through a zoom lens that exposed every area that demanded my attention, and every minute I was spending on things that had to wait or fall away. Let’s face it–every professional writer, fiction or nonfiction, faces this moment in every book, when it’s time to rewrite and hone a draft so the reader will get the full effect of all the hard work you’ve put into it. And every person ultimately faces this moment in life, sooner or later–maybe I’ve just been lucky enough to stumble across it sooner than some.

My family and my writing–they’ll get my all, because they’re my heart. My readers and fans and fellow writers and students will continue to be my focus whenever my first priorities are well cared for and thriving on their own. Because my creative heart belongs to you as well. You and my writing and my family are the things that make all of this worth it.

But, where will the specifics of day-to-day living and working and feeling fall in the midst of this epiphany??? What will get done, and what will wait, and how will things change? That’s where the revision will come this year. We’ll work it out. I’ll work it out. And this I know for sure–it’ll be the best work of my life, because the focus and the feelings will be in sync, like no other moment I’ve experienced.

Come share the momet with me. We’ll do the revising together…

Tags: anna's world, creativity & inspiration, writing articles

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Anna's "Soul of the Matter". You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.