Middle-Pause Pump-Priming Prompt

Working on Goals: Do You Take the Interstate Straight to Your Goal or More Scenic Routes?

In other words, how and/or where do you like to focus?

As a writer moving from amateur to professional status, I often get overwhelmed. Especially when I see what others accomplished while I appear to be spinning my wheels.

There’s just so much to stay on top of — fresh writing, edits, social media, blogging, promotion, email newsletters, not to mention to have or not to have an author website.

Friends tell me I don’t have to do it all at once. Or that I don’t have to do it all ever. But how then do I pick and choose what’s right for me, and when?

I’ve been anything and everything but systematic.

I have taken advantage of the many classes, workshops, and opportunities presented by my all-time favorite online writing community, Ninja Writers, led by head Ninja, Shaunta Grimes.

That’s allowed me to learn Canva.com when Adrienne Grimes taught Canva for Writers. That helped me create an Instagram account during the Instagram for Writers class. That I’m able to create for and post on Instagram feels like nothing short of a miracle for technologically challenged me.

Oops! I’m not wanting to label or own the term technologically challenged. Even though that shoe currently fits my dainty little feet. Let me rephrase.

Instagram delights my inner artist, while not being as intuitive as I would prefer it to be. It took more of a learning curve for me to master than Facebook, Twitter or Medium did. There! How’s that? Better?

One thing I’m learning is if my efforts are scattered, and they are, my results most likely will be scattered too.

I don’t have one well-honed niche on which I focus.

Even though that may be the prevailing wisdom. I’ve certainly been encouraged in that direction many a time.

But when I get honest with myself, I realize that I’m not willing to shut out or hide vital parts of myself. My best performing stories on this platform include humor, spirituality, and the ones where I spill my guts about being a sex and love addict who thankfully landed her behind in recovery. And being in recovery makes the humor and the spirituality possible. So there!

But I haven’t even stuck to that trinity as a blogger here.

When Debbie Walker’s vision for empowering women’s lives with Middle-Pause and our podcast STOMP! captured my heart, I said yes, yes, yes!

I’ve learned to be an encouraging as well as skilled editor who’s helped many new writers get their posts curated or distributed. That feels so good.

My all-time favorite moment as an editor was reading Alison Acheson’s story Flamenco and Finding the Rhythm of My Heart, and having the flash of insight to ask her if she happened to have a picture of herself dancing flamenco. She did.

And what a picture it is! Not only that, she took flamenco as a way to nurture herself while taking care of her husband, Marty, who was wasting away with a rapidly-debilitating form of ALS. It turned out, Marty was the photographer who captured the light on Alison’s face that makes that picture glow. And makes me tear up.

I would not have missed this moment for all the humor claps MuddyUm can spare.

And, thanks to my improv experience, I’m comfortable and fluid as an interviewer on our podcasts. Not to mention how much I thoroughly enjoy it. It may come as no surprise that my favorite one so far is the time I interviewed Alison, and she shared her story, including the dancing, with our listeners.

Our New Anthology

Now we are about to publish the first volume of our four-volume anthology, Menopause: Aging & Caregiving. I have a story in that one, and another in volume number three, where I’m also the editor.

That means Debbie asked me to write the introduction, which I was glad to do so I could talk about the included stories. Volume three’s theme is Menopause & Transition. Two of my all-time favorite Middle-Pause stories are in the transition section, which is why I was thrilled to write its introduction.

One of those stories is, you guessed it, Alison’s flamenco story. The other one is Diana Carson-Walker’s Growth Is on the Other Side of Scary Experiences. Facing fear to move forward is an issue for me. That’s why I wrote a series of posts here on Middle-Pause that became a book, Bucket Listers: Get Your Brave On, to help me coach myself through scary times.

Right now feels like one of those scary times. Not physically, but more existentially. As 2021 winds down, I look at what I’ve accomplished and how far I still have to go. Sigh.

Am I where I want to be? No.

But that doesn’t mean I’m disappointed. What it means is, I’ve taken what I’ll call the scenic route, rather than a straight shot down a more niched or focused interstate. Because of that, I’ve seen, done, and felt a lot more than I ever could have anticipated back when I started out.

And I’m so grateful for these scenic route experiences.

I’ve gotten to shine my light, share my gifts and make new friends. Many, many new friends.

So when my novel finally gets done — and with God as my witness, it will get done! — there will be that many more people eagerly awaiting its birth. Godparents, aunties, uncles, sisters, and brothers — the family I’ve gathered along the way while everything was gestating as only a book called Man Pregnant! can.

I’m trusting many of them will or have signed up for my mailing list so they’ll get the birth announcement!

So this is the Middle-Pause Pump-Priming Prompt question: Working on goals: Do you take the interstate straight to your goal or more scenic routes? In other words, how and/or where do you tend to focus?

You don’t have to be a writer to respond. I am so that’s what my story ends up being about. But you are you. So you do you! Then we can look forward to reading you!

What are you ‘too old’ or ‘too scared’ to do? Let me show you how!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On: How to Do the Thing You’re ‘Too Old’ & ‘Too Scared’ to Do. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!