Dragons

Hi there!  My name is Leann. Officially, I am known as Jewel Leann Williams. That's the name that will be shouted from the rooftops when I am a well-known and well-compensated author.

But first, I have to conquer various dragons.  Dragon #1 is a small, obnoxious dragon known as strep throat. It's taken up residence in the cave of my three-year-old's throat, currently lording it over his tonsils and giving him fiery 104 degree fevers. I am informed that he has spawned and has spread to the one-year-old little princess. (This also serves as my excuse for not writing my brand new blog until 11:30 on Saturday night. Sorry Boss.)

Dragon #2 is more internal. Bigger. Meaner. Think Smaug, where #1 was more "How to Train Your Dragon" training dragons. It's the one we all (maybe?) deal with. I run around so much being everything BUT a writer, that even though I clearly write, I don't give it the priority it deserves. My "excuse" is that I am such a busy mom. Trust me, I am a very busy mom. I have six kids, including the aforementioned preschooler and infant/beautiful destructive tornado.  Today I have spent about four hours in an emergency room, and two hours driving my leg of the tri-stake-youth-dance-carpool.  I crammed in helping my sweet husband make three Pinewood Derby cars, attend said Pinewood Derby, and.....watch three hours of Stargate SG1 with my family.  That last one, totally coulda been spent on THE MYSTIC MARBLE.  Or BRIGHTHOPE. Or HUNTER. Or my poetry. Or this blog. Or the Relief Society lesson I just realized I may be supposed to be teaching tomorrow. Oh boy.

In the ANWA Annual Conference just over a month ago, Deirdra Eden said in a class she taught, that we all have the same amount of time, so we can't really "make" time to write. What we can do, is PROTECT our time that we are given, for those things we find important. This is my goal. I work on it every day. I have some things  I need to do to get my writing going for real again--mostly cleaning and organizing oriented, so it may be years and years before I decide to protect time for THAT sort of drudgery. Okay, not really--I actually AM doing it.

Dragon #3..... it's the worst one. It's the self-doubt, the jerkface demon in my head that tells me I'm not as good as (Insert author here), what was I thinking even putting pen to paper, I'm not smart enough, I don't have anything worthwhile to say, etc etc etc. It's the dragon that changes its face into all the other little issues, roadblocks, time suckers, etc., that keep me from doing what I have to do, in order to be able to get the words that are IN my head and heart, onto the page.

So.... anybody gotta sword?

(PS, I'll write up a proper introduction when I have some time to find decent photos, etc.)
(PPS I promise my contribution to the blog will be better than this, and will come on Saturday, not "practically Sunday" in the future.)

Leann