Bad Hair Week

This is not my hair, or my photo.  Click on the photo for the original source.
This is not my hair, or my photo. (click for source).

I am having a bad hair week.  I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I have great hair…  it’s sorta my thing.  So a bad hair day here or there is manageable, but bad hair for days upon days is pretty soul sucking (it’s a joke, folks.  a mostly true one, but a joke all the same).  Actually, I’m having a rough time this week in general (it just occurred to me today, when a friend complimented my hair to try and cheer me up, that my hair might have something to do with it).  I’m waking up cranky.  I’m being snappy with my kid and my beloved.  I’m generally dissatisfied with life and nothing is really wrong.  I’ve been in a funk.

I had a very long playdate in the park this afternoon (that, frankly, I was dreading because I would have to pretend to be the version of myself that is actually happy around other people).  Turns out, after pretending for 5 minutes, I just became her and I think I’m on the upswing–I felt better yesterday evening and I do again today… so that’s progress.

But because I’m in a funk, I’m cutting myself a lot of slack.  It’s part of the way I take care of myself.  I back off of some of the (ridiculously) high expectations I have of myself in order to loosen the grip the shame has on my psyche.  And I had planned to give myself the opportunity to shirk the post I had scheduled to write tonight… and then in my email this morning I got this.  And the brilliant, Jo Anna Rothman’s words got right up under my skin.  And most of the day I thought, fine–I’ll write it, that’s what my task says to do “write BBB post,” but I won’t post it.  That’ll be plenty.  And then I read it again (go ahead and click on it now if you didn’t the first time–I’ll wait).  And I was, like, damn girl–get out of my head!  Stop being the same as me… because if we have that in common that must also mean that I’m as awesome as you are and if I’m as awesome as you are and you don’t let this nonsense stop you then I can’t let it stop me either!

the task in question
the task in question

So, here I am… bad hair and all.  Doing what I committed to myself I would do today which is tell you about what’s next for me here on the blog.

As you may recall, I recently returned from the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon where I reconnected with my writer self and got clear about how I wanted to spend my creative time and energy (ahem, writing).  I also mentioned that I had been planning to solicit contributions for an eCourse and instead of throwing all that work out the window I was going to redirect that energy toward building my author’s platform instead.

I’ve got a few books in me… at least. I have the memoir of the year of my life post-divorce where I turned a major life transition into an opportunity for life transformation.  I have the book that DOES tell you how hard parenting is (and why, and what you can do about it).  I have a childhood story that’s gripping enough that when I wrote about it in 10th grade my teacher gave the paper a C- yet still wanted to display it on the wall at back-to-school night.  I’m sure eventually I’ll write a book about writing a book.  But having good books isn’t enough anymore.  The world of publishing (self or traditional) requires that you have an author’s platform (basically that means a built in community of readers, probably in the form of social media followers and even more importantly, and engaged group of social media followers).

As I’ve learned from others, the most effective way to be successful (and feel good) is through collaboration, so I’m stating my intention here–out loud–in front of everyone.  I’m going to build my author’s platform by doing the most terrifying thing imaginable.  I am going to invite people I admire to come to this blog and guest post (they might say no–ack!) and I am going to ask people I admire if I may do the same for them (again, what if they say no?  double ack!).  And we’re going to share our readership.  And our collaboration is going to help all of us.  And we’re going to be amazing.

So, that’s my plan.  Now you’ve heard it.  There’s also a theme (because besides collaboration, branding is really important too), and on Thursday you’re going to hear more about it.  I can’t wait to share it with you (unless you think it sucks, then I can wait… but I’m not going to.  Thursday.  It’s coming).

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