Progress on the Must-Do List

I've now reached the point where two items on my list MUST be resolved. The church newsletter deadline is tomorrow morning -- and two minutes ago I emailed the bio as an attachment. Check that off my list.

If I want to submit a poetry manuscript in time for the November 30 deadline, it has to go out in the next 48 hours. So, tomorrow or Wednesday? Why not?

The great thing is that once the poetry mss. is in the mail, the historylink.org article will be my ONLY must-do item left on the list. Oh, wait, I have the letters (but now those are feeling more doable). And, yes, end of the quarter student papers will be arriving soon. Yes, I have a couple other must-do items that can be added. But I'm going to count it all as progress. There are always the must-do's. One still has to proceed with the real, important work. The strange thing is that, with daily attention, the article for historylink has begun to feel like real and important work. Hmm, that's worth noticing.

I am compelled to add that poetry always feels real and important to me (and I don't need rewards to get myself to work on it). But I've been hanging fire on getting a mss. submitted for some months now. That's the piece that feels like busywork, the piece that requires some prodding to achieve.

"I don't need more time. I need a deadline." -Duke Ellington