Stop! Sucking! Day 16: Stop thinking it’s all about you
You know I get panicky—PANICKY, I tell you—at the thought of going back on a promise to you.
A promise like “I’m going to write 21 posts in a row, and put one up every day, and ain’t nothin’…nothin’ gonna stop me.”
Well, fine. But something actually did. A trip I’d had planned for a while. To Chicago. Which I actually extended since, for the first time in a few years, I’m going when the weather is reasonable-ish. Besides, I’m usually there such a short time I have to cram everyone into a few gatherings. And while it’s fun to get your worlds colliding, and it’s great to have a party, I miss the one-on-one time I used to get with many of my old, Chi-town peeps.
So this post you’re reading? It was written (gasp) on Thursday. Because I had a hunch that between travel and plans and Where’s WiFi?, I might not squeak one out on Friday.
I worried so much about what you’d think of me for doing this. And then I realized: you probably won’t. Probably wouldn’t have even if I didn’t post at all.
Because it’s not all about me. And it never was.
Funny, how you find these things out…
xxx
c
Image by mass distraction via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.
TOPICS: 21 day salutes, Stop! Sucking!.
9 Comments, Comment or Ping
Abbie
That’s ok, we can wait until you get back.
Have a nice trip
Apr 25th, 2008
Laura Moncur
I ALWAYS have a backlog of posts. It’s very rare when I post something on the same day that I write it.
Newspapers have a two-week backlog. So can we.
You can’t imagine how it takes the pressure off my writing when I know I have a two week backlog and I can just NOT write today if I don’t want to. I end up writing so much more.
Apr 25th, 2008
e.
Have fun! I wish you could bring home a Potbelly’s sub…or Gino’s East pizza…or *anything* from the Athenian Room. Mmmm…the little piggy in me says it’s time for lunch….
Apr 25th, 2008
GirlPie
We would’ve noticed, eventually.
We’re glad you’ve smartly prepared posts that are still on topic.
We’re glad you’re visiting friends and having a life and enjoying a sense of season back east…
My takeaways from this:
a) always have back-up;
b) never promise a new commitment;
c) in a writer/reader sitch (or client/consultant; audience/filmmaker; child/parent, etc.), it’s more about “us” than it is about either you or me.
Apr 25th, 2008
Angie
Unfu*kingbelievable, you LIED to us? Twenty lashes with a whip…..
wait, what if you like that?!
Ms. C, you have done one hell of a job keeing us up to date on this here blog, you can slide this ONE time! ;)
Apr 25th, 2008
the communicatrix
Well, guys, I didn’t create a backlog–just the one. I figured I can write from here just as well as L.A.
I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
Apr 26th, 2008
Earl Kabong
So, I turned in an article last Monday that was scheduled to run tomorrow (Sunday) and, as usual, I felt I’d done a less-than-wonderful job on the piece. It’s just how I am. I didn’t hear from any editors that day. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. And by Thursday I was convinced that the story had been so horrible, such a complete waste of everyone’s time, that they had killed it or, at the very least, were holding it for a week so they could have enough time to salvage the thing. Clearly, I’d blown it.
Except that — everybody join with me here — it wasn’t about me. There’d been some screw-up with the computer system and the story had gotten lost somewhere in the interwebs and it wasn’t about me or the story at all. The story, it turns out, is fine. It’ll run next week and I am not a complete and absolute failure.
At least not this week. Next week? We just don’t know.
Apr 26th, 2008
the communicatrix
Haha. I’ve sent that email. Hell, I send it, like, once a week—down from 1-3x daily, so I’m comfortable with calling that progress.
Apr 26th, 2008