Crossing the Bridges: Planning and Doing
Sometimes I am far better at the planning than I am at the actual doing.
“Don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through.” – Dr. Horrible.
The thing about plans is that they are nothing but words. Without action they are nothing but ideas. I can plan until I am blue in the face, but unless I take action I have nothing but ideas here.
This is why I began to take New Year’s Actions, rather than resolutions. What began as a once-weekly blog is almost five years old, and has been joined by two cousins. I may not be writing as much fiction as I’d like to be, but I AM writing at least thrice a week.
Recently I began getting coaching. My coach helps provide me with someone to check-in with, as well as some much needed direction and advice. We’ve been discussing one of the means by which I can promote my writing, and increase sales – presentations.
I want to go to local small bookstores and libraries and maybe even coffee shops and bring a bunch of books to sell. I want to talk about the craft, my journey, my fiction and non-fiction works alike, read some of what I have created, and then sign and sell books. I don’t expect a huge boost in sales right away, but this will get me out there, get my name and my works out there, and start building things up.
Once I came to the notion that I am a writer, and that it doesn’t matter if I am writing non-fiction, fiction, copywriting, business writing or what-have-you, I established it was time to stop over-complicating things, call myself a writer, and move forward.
Ok, great, I have a better notion of who I am and how I wish to present. I began to research and came up with a list of libraries, bookstores and coffee shops to reach out to and see if I can get in the door.
But rather than begin reaching out to anyone, I started to consider other plans. How many places should I reach out to? How many places do I want to hit before the end of the year? How many copies of my books will I need? Which books do I want to have with me to sign and sell? What do I read from? What about business cards? Should I get an easel and create a posterboard to have as my background?
I have totally and completely gotten ahead of myself with all the planning. Yes, most of these things need to be taken into consideration, but first I should maybe actually reach out to these venues and see how many are willing and able to accommodate me.
That, right there, is the elephant in the room. I want to start putting all these bits and pieces together, I want to plot these parts out and know what and how this will work…and I have yet to start the process of reaching out to the prospective venues.
How many can I get into before the end of the year? Well, if I reach out to zero venues, I will successfully get myself into zero venues. Success!
Or…maybe not. Last I checked, zero plus zero equals zero. Having nowhere to go to read and sign and sell books means I will not do any readings nor signings nor generate any sales. Which means I don’t use this means to build up my presence and sales.
Action is required. Yoda said, “Do or do not, there is no try.” Substitute “try” with “plan”, and this is where I need to act.
Why the inaction? Good old fear, most probably. Fear of failure, coupled with fear of success. Fear of rejection. An unreasonable fear of being told I am no good and my efforts at being a writer are wholly pointless.
What to do? Action. Enough with the planning, I need to get with the doing.
During my most recent coaching session, before we were done I had composed an e mail to the first library I want to present at. Before the end of the day, they were the first I reached out to.
Further planning can come when I have an idea of what venues will have me, when they will have me, and so on. I can put the rest of this together when I have somewhere to be, planning for it now is totally putting the cart before the horse.
I won’t deny that sometimes you need to have a plan before you can act. For me it’s about finding the balance between planning, overplanning, action and inaction. If I want to take my writing to the next level, I have to take the necessary actions to make it so.
Manifesting dreams into realities requires the right blend of thought, feeling and action. Planning is thinking. I can take that to feeling what it will be like to be there at that bookstore or library, reading to an appreciative audience, answering questions, then signing books. But to make it happen I need to take action, and that means communicating with the venues.
Planning is complete. I have thought it through. I have been feeling it over. Action starts now.
Thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me!
This is the seventh entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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