Goals, goals...the magical fruit....

                Goals, we all have them.  These little gems are the alleged back bone of a successful life.  We build our futures one goal at a time.  Is your goal to big?  No problem we can just break them up into smaller more time sensitive ones.  We even spend agonizing hours thinking about them while hunched around the almighty Facebook (or Twitter…or both for all of us truly addicted simpletons) typing our little selves into a corner with our new year’s resolutions.  There is even a tiny sub-genre of book authors who devote oodles of time to helping you, yes you, come up with these little ditties.  Each year we declare our intention to achieve and each year we fail at a few of them.  We are the masters of aggressive mediocrity by hitting a .300 average when it comes to meeting our goals.  One has to wonder, do they really matter?

                 Despite what it sounds like I’m not really bashing on them because they do actually work.  I just question whether they are the Holy Grail we’d like them to be.  I wanted to ride 1500 miles last year and I declared this to everyone who mattered.  My sister-in-law challenged me and together we set out to hit our goal and we did.  (She kicked my butt by hitting 2011 miles while I topped out at 1800.)  When I hit the fifteen hundred mile mark I did it on a ride that destroyed my bike.  (I mean this literally).  The bike was so tweaked there was no riding it ever again. Topping that off was the fact that it was a ride that I didn’t even finish.  Yet, I’d hit the magic 1500.  I should’ve been happy, elated even.  I should’ve danced a jig and thrown my arms up to the heavens.  I didn’t.  Only a few knew I’d done it and even fewer cared.   I wasn’t stronger or faster and I certainly hadn’t morphed into Lance 2.0.

What did I expect to happen exactly?

I’m not really sure to be honest.  Do we ride all year, strive to get out and hit the pavement as often as possible (with the rubber side down of course) and rack up the miles no matter what?  To what end?  To see the numbers pile up on an excel spread sheet?  (It is pretty cool though)   Some people focus on a race or a series of races.  Do they magically change with success or is it simply enough for them to ‘Do It’?  I wish I knew because as I stare at the pile of pages in front of me and realize that the goal to finish a manuscript of novel length is gone like a great puff of smoke I’m sort of left with the eternal question, ‘What now?’  Certainly it’s not going to get published simply because I wrote it.  (I’ve got a pretty big ego but it’s not that inflated)  Sure it’s an achievement not everyone can claim and yes I agree it is a start.  Many people say they’re going to write a novel and never even get this far.  But now what?  Editing?  (I’ve already started) A new goal maybe?   

Or perhaps it is the journey that is the important factor.  It’s not the goal as so many self-help Yoda’s would like us to think it is.  It’s not the perfect body at the end of six weeks or after a week of the latest vegetable cleanse.  Maybe it’s the journey that gets us to the goal that is important.  The goal isn’t the life changing moment but the journey that gets us to it.  Was it the 1500 mile mark or the many rides it took to get there, good and bad, that were important?  Not too many parents look at their kids and think ‘Just wait till they get to eighteen and then we’re done.’  (Although I’m sure when I was sixteen that thought floated around the evening dinner conversation on more than one occasion) For me it’s the journey to eighteen for my kids.  The years, month and days that it takes to get to eighteen is the important part.  This is even more important when like me you have an unconventional schedule where I’m little more than a part-time Dad for much of the time.

 
As I begin working on writing as something a little more than a hobby, goals will be made almost by default.   I will probably even strive to hit my riding/writing goals this year. I’ll get the ‘Project that can’t be named’ edited and maybe even a second draft completed.  I think though that I, along with many others, have to stop putting so much stock into our goals.  They are important to have but they are not the greener grass on the other side of the fence.   We don’t magically change simply because we attain them.  We need to remember to focus on the journey that gets us to a completed goal.  Goals are important for sure but we need to keep our selves focused on what they really mean.  The goal should not be the end all and be all of our existence so that when we attain it we end up with a letdown and then the dreaded stagnation because the heavens didn’t open up and the angels remained mute.   As with all things goals and our striving to attain them must be tempered with moderation.  Don’t give up though it’s not all bad.  Continuing the earlier baseball metaphor, we need to keep stepping up to the plate, keep swinging that bat for better or for worse because once every now and again we’ll smack a deep fly ball that just squeaks over the center field wall, just don’t forget to enjoy the sound of the crowd going nuts and the feel of the bases under your cleat.  The home run will just get added to the stat line but the experience is the thing that we’ll take with us when we can’t play anymore.

Passion

              One of the excuses I used to not write for a long time was that I had no passion in my life.  I spent a lot of time writing some pretty intense stuff that will never see the time of day.  These things were written during some pretty intense moments in my adult life.  It was like the anger, angst, and glee were all mixing to open a door to pure story.  The rainbow bridge of creativity was being opened to me through this intoxicating emotional brew.  I could sit down and the gates would open and out vomited this intense story line involving emotionally charged characters and a world that was as personal as it was cookie cutter of the movies out at the time.  It was amazing.  It was scary.  That character and the supporting cast hung around me for a long time but would only really interact with me when there was some emotional catalyst.  This led me to believe that the only way to write was by having these intense moments in life.  

                As with most people the drama of my life has mellowed as I’ve gotten older and helped to bring three beautiful children into this world.  The hunger to push myself over and over again so as to achieve the unachievable simply seemed to seep right out of me.  The birth of my twins was the first nail in muse’s coffin.  That black, moldy wooden final resting place of all my little imaginary worlds sat next to me and hummed a soft dirge at me while I toiled away at one in the morning feeding my little five pound babies nearly eleven years ago.  I tried to write but just couldn’t muster up the strength or the emotional angst to put ‘good’ words to paper (or in this case the screen).  My recommitment to my marriage and the birth of our third child really finished that coffin off and I found myself eagerly throwing dirt over it in an attempt to bury my creative side for good.  After all I wasn’t going to be able to become an author because I didn’t have the time, the energy, and the angst.  Everything was good in life and good stories only come out of the bad and the dark.

                I don’t think I got the lid quite nailed down tight enough because my muse still calls to me.  In those quiet moments it still strokes my arm and reminds me that it’s waiting to be let out.  After watching a good movie, or reading a good book my muse screams at me to be released and more often than not I do.  I’ll sit down and try to talk to it.  We write together and the ideas come out broken, hobbled, and formulaic.  I’ll sigh and remind him that now’s not the time.  He’ll skulk off into the corner and finally climb back into the coffin with an evil laugh and a reminder to me that it’ll be different next time.  It rarely is.

Still….it’s there, right in the back of my mind.  This thing I’ve left undone.  The stories, plots, and characters I’ve dreamed up speak to me in that quiet moment between being awake and being asleep.  Maybe it’s time to push past the beginnings I’ve created and settle into the middle.  Let the stories breathe.  Silence my inner critic so the muse can take full reign for a few hours each day.  This seems like more and more of a good idea the more times I give in. 

So over the years I’ve gone on to study the art and craft of writing through numerous books published by authors and companies that are devoted to it.  Most of those books sit and stare at me even as I write this.  I’ve learned a thing or two.  I created a few characters that have really resonated with me and one day while I was writing I found out that I was doing it without the angst and anger that I thought I needed to fuel a good tall tale.  It wasn’t that I was lacking passion because I felt passion but it was different.  I was feeling passion for the story I was working on, for the main character and the world around him.  It was amazing and believe it or not the ‘project that will not be named’ was born.  It had taken me nearly six years and too many attempts to count to get there but it worked.  Maybe it had just been a six year long writer’s block, more than likely it was the evil idea thwarting Inner Critic, whatever it was I learned that the kids had not sucked my muse from me with each time they cried.  I am happy and content with life and my family.  I’m writing and it’s been fun.  I’d like to say it the stuff is good but it probably isn’t.  I’ve learned, though, that a first draft isn’t supposed to be good.  It’s being written not for others but for me.  It has the potential to be good but not yet.  More re-writes and edits will be needed before we get to Good but at least now I know I can do it and I don’t need to be the Haunted Writer with Demons to do it.