Actually, calling it a small victory may not be the best choice of words, since it felt like a pretty significant victory. It was tough to stay committed to this project. I thought writing a novel would be a far easier task than it’s turned out to be; one time through, hand it to an editor, be done with it! I was wrong.

I recently realized how wrong I was when I took a short class on writing a novel. The instructor was a published author who told me she had about 15 drafts before she was able to call it good. FIFTEEN!!!

Personally, I don’t plan to create 15 drafts, but I do anticipate several more drafts on my project. At least one, maybe two or more before I’m ready to hand it over to a select few people for feedback. Once I’ve got some feedback, I plan to do a couple more drafts — including an edit from a professional editor.

Right now, I’m going to put the project away for a short while and wait for inspiration to put draft number 3 in motion. I’m not sure when that will be, but I have a tentative goal to get it done by the next Nanowrimo 2010, in November. A month in which a new book will likely find it’s beginnings.

So, to sum up how I got to this point: when I did Nanowrimo 2009, I completed most of my first draft. I wrote all through November and about two weeks into December. I then harvested the high points from the plot/characters and put them on 3×5 cards that I stuck on a bulliten-board that remains a permanent fixture in my house.

My writing board and my muse

The breakdown:

1st draft – 2.5 months (Working daily, several hours a day)
2nd draft – 4.5 months (Working weekly, on a doable minimum schedule)

The above 7 months of work has actually taken me over 9 months with all the breaks I’ve taken on the project. Completion — if it sees the light of day —will easily take more than a year. I hope it sees the light of day, but I still may decide to shelf it. I reserve the right to shelf it! And if I do, well, all will not be lost.

Writing this novel has been fun, it’s been difficult, but it’s also been a great learning experience. One which I plan to do again and again!

I think if I was a professional author, working only on my project, then 4-6 months would be a reasonable time-frame to complete a novel. Since I work full time and write novels on the side — even though I haven’t finished one yet — I’d say a year and a half to 2 years would be reasonable. But that’s just a projection.

So… if you’re writing a novel, or planning on writing a novel, hopefully my experience will shed some light on the subject. Thanks for reading and keep writing!

Anyway, I did an experiment where I became a smoker for about a month. Actually, I didn’t set out to do an experiment, it just turned out that way. The more I smoked, the more I found myself craving cigarettes. I started with a pack a week and then increased my intake to a pack every 2-3 days. My entire involvement with cigarettes went on for about 30 days.

When I noticed my cravings for nicotine growing, I decided to find out what I was in for if I suddenly quit smoking. I didn’t use any “quit smoking” products, I just stopped — “cold turkey” as they say. Here is my story of how I gave up smoking.

Day 1 - Quitting pride is on my side.(Imagining this jingle) In the past, I smoked mostly in the evenings so that’s when my cravings are the worst. The cravings are on/off throughout the day but the evenings are the worst. My God, this is the worst! Not really though ’cause I’m going to be smoke free! It’s easy for me to be my own cheerleader at this point, a cheerleader that sings little jingles for myself. Rah, rah, rah!

Day 2 – Quitting pride is fading. Stupid cheerleader metaphor, just give me a smoke already. I picture myself smoking in my imagination, a persistent vision I can’t seem to shake. I don’t want to say my thoughts to smoke are like a broken record because that’s a lame metaphor, uh yeah, like something else I just mentioned. Glad you’re still reading!

Day 3 – Pride gone, I need to smoke. This is all just ridiculous. I go out for a walk and see discarded cigarette butts everywhere. People are smoking, even the people who aren’t smoking seem to be smoking. I wish people would stop doing things with their hands/fingers. I look away from them, anywhere I can. I look to the sky. The clouds above me resemble plumes of smoke.

“It’s all in your head,” as they say, but the problem is that you’re head is a pretty significant part of you’re body and you can’t get rid of it easily.

Day 4 – The urges are still there but not quite as bad as yesterday. At least not until the urges come back and they’re toting guns, smoking cigars, and pointing them at me (both the guns and the cigars). I can’t believe I committed to this experiment for 7 days! Really, I surrender, I’ll smoke a fucking God-damn cigarette already! But before I can get my hands on some, the psychic smoking gunslingers disappear and I’m off the hook.

If this blog post can be of inspiration to anyone trying to quit, one tip I have for you: Do not make cigarettes available at your immediate convenience. If you do, you’ll lose this game, I promise.

Day 5 – The urges to smoke are not quite as bad as yesterday. I guess I use that statement a lot to get me through this quit smoking experience; “Today’s better than yesterday”.

That said, I hear an arabic sounding jingle on the radio and it takes me back to the design on the box of Camel Cigarettes. I’m in a foreign land, enjoying the robust flavor of a fine, hand rolled tobacco product. The gunslingers are there, riding camels. We all shake our heads in approval of the cigarettes we smoke. The vision vanishes but my urge to smoke doesn’t.

“Just hang in there — two more days to go!”

Day 6 – Cashier in the checkout stand catches me eyeing the cigarettes behind her and asks me if I want some. I say I’m trying to quit. “Oh, good for you.” she says. “Whatever you do, don’t start up again after you quit.”

I gave her a curious look but had no comment. It was interesting advice, and I’m thinking she must have been a reformed quitter because earlier she mentioned she was a smoker.

I get home and sit on the back porch where I usually smoke. I have the thought that one puff would be nice. Just one and I’d put the rest of the cigarette out. If someone was standing near me with a cigarette I would do this and the 7 day quit thing would become a flop.

Day 7 - Okay, done with this little experiment — I’m leaving the house now to buy another pack of cigarettes! Actually, I’m having second thoughts about this because I don’t want to experience this “quit smoking” cycle again. It doesn’t seem worth it to me. Second thoughts are priceless.

And… I want to hold onto those valuable second thoughts because buying smokes is not priceless. A pack of cigarettes will typically go for more than $5.00 and the kind I took a liking to cost $5.89 a pack — yep, a jip!

Anyway, no cigarettes for me, not today. And as I write this in the evening, having reached my goal, I’m still craving a smoke. Addictive? Uh… Yeah. I have cravings today that rival day 3, even though the urge to smoke has subsided quite a bit.

I know it sounds cliche to say “be smart don’t start,” but if you’re still reading this then you probably don’t mind silly cliche’s and can hopefully extract some wisdom from all this. So while we’re on the subject, how ’bout “Oh shit, just quit!” when you’re thinkin about the costs of cigarettes. Go ahead, sing it if you want, I won’t tell anyone. I won’t even think you’re lame!

But seriously, I support anyone who chooses to quit smoking, or better yet not start. Of course you’ll need more than my support, you’ll need your own reasons to avoid smoking and that’s where things can get complex and personal.

As I mentioned before, I did not start smoking to do this “quit smoking” experiment. I started because I thought it would help me relieve stress. Smoking was helpful for stress relief in the beginning, but then I found it to be less and less helpful — It over promised and under delivered. Cigarettes gave me relief from my stress by offering me a brief feeling of well being. It’s a feeling of satisfaction that faded the more I smoked. I needed more, yet got less and less — yep, a jip!

Now, as far as dealing with my stress goes… I still haven’t solved that problem. Unmanageable stress is a personal issue for me. That’s another blog post though. Until then, “be smart don’t start” and “oh shit, just quit”! Here’s another web article that I thought offered some good tips on how to quit smoking.

And please, I want to hear from you! So feel free to leave a comment if you liked or didn’t like my story on how to give up smoking.

The doable minimum involves setting aside a small amount of time each day to do a specific task. For example, if you want to create a giant quilt, devote an hour every other day to sewing small pieces of material together. Even if it takes a full year, you’ll eventually have something that covers a king size bed!

The doable minimum is a process that involves taking baby steps, much like what’s shown in the video I did here, how to rip a phone book in half. The idea is to break things down into sizable chunks and before you know it you’ve accomplished something significant.

Presently I’m devoting 4 hours a week to writing my novel as well as 4 hours a week to art. I do these activities in one hour sessions. Sometimes I enjoy it and want to go longer, other times I simply fill my time requirement. Either way, an hour is something I can commit to, a doable minimum.

Consistent commitment is key in this process. Through consistency over time, distance toward my goal is gained. For example, I’ve been doing the second draft of my novel for almost 2 months now and I’ve noticed a significant progress that’s been made. As of writing this, I am almost half way through round two, and I’m happy with that!

Having someone else keep you in check with a common goal can also help keep you going. For example Rachel Thomae, a professional writer and I did a writing contest called Nanowrimo this year. We are now motivating one another to take our rough drafts to the next level and get them ready for publishing. When talking to Rachel she had a few things to say about the doable minimum.

“Kinda like working out. I know I can get to the gym three times a week, but not five. Five would be great, but I’d quit!”

Rachel speaks a lot about diet and exercise on her blog. She also has a good article about setting goals.

So there you have it. Find your own doable minimum, something that is comfortable for you, and commit to it. An hour every other day works for me in most cases but everyone’s different. So if you have a goal in mind that you’d like to achieve, just make it… ya know, doable.

Here are five tips:

1. Decide to wake up earlier – This is the decision that drives you out of your comfortable bed and into the cold morning air. You’ve got to decide to do it and stick to that decision. I like to do meditations on decisions like this, it can sometimes help me stay serious about it.

2. Have a goal that you’re working on – When you have a goal or a purpose, you have something to do. It helps to have something to look forward to when you’re making yourself leave your cozy bed. In my case I used writing a Novel as my goal. I broke it down further by trying to get 2000 words every day.

*3. Get up when you wake up – This is the big trick for me because I like to make things as easy as possible. Most people have natural times when they wake up in the morning. They wake up and usually go to the bathroom and then go back to sleep. If you are like this, use it to your advantage.

Pick a time, say after 3:00 in the morning. If you wake up naturally at this time, stay up. Don’t go back to bed. Do this for several nights in a row. If you feel tired the next day, it’s usually psychological and you can push through it. Eventually you’ll stop feeling tired and waking up early will come naturally.

4. Put out your clothes for the next day – This is a good idea because it’s usually dark in the morning and turning on the light will wake a significant other. Not having to dig around in your closet and drawers for clothes, allows you to put more mental focus on getting going in the morning.

5. Set your alarm clock – This one sounds obvious right? Well, if you do all of the above things then the alarm clock is just a backup. Ideally you will wake up before the alarm clock and turn it off before it starts to blare at you.

So that’s how I woke up early for the month of November, which allowed me to get my project done. I highly recommend these five tips, with a special emphasis on number three. If you follow them one by one, you’ll have a pretty strong handle on how to wake up early in the morning.

The mermaid tensed up and lashed at him with her magical tail. The fisherman jumped back and calmly set the blanket down. She relaxed and her body glistened in the sun as the sea water dripped off her pale skin.

The fisherman couldn’t believe that the heavens had brought him such a beautiful creature. He didn’t know what to do, so he just gazed at her in stillness and listened to her thoughts.

The fisherman knew exactly what the mermaid was communicating because she had the ability to paint vivid pictures in his mind. He came to understand that she was caught in his net by her own will.

“Why did you let me catch you?” He asked out loud because he could not relate in her native tongue.
“You need to do something for me” she said, but this time she spoke with words. “My gift to you is my presence and that will always be my gift but you must now throw me back into the sea.”
“What do you mean?” said the fisherman. “How can I have your presence if I throw you back into the sea?”

The fisherman pleaded but he knew that he must throw her back, there was no other way. So he scooped her up in his arms and moved toward the edge of the boat to drop her back into the ocean.

Before he could let go, she kissed him. The experience was like a rush of white light entering his soul, surrounding and embracing him. He could never let her go, never! But she told him that he must and so he did. He dropped her and she vanished into the ocean.

Every day since the mermaid first appeared to the fisherman, he hoped he would see her in his daily catch but she was never caught. Every day he hoped he would see her swimming by his boat but he never saw her. He longed to see her and felt even more lonely at the thought of her absence.

“Why didn’t I just keep her against her will?” he thought. “Surely her telepathy would have driven me mad, but it wouldn’t be as bad as the madness I suffer now.”

Weeks of tormenting thoughts passed before the fisherman realized how foolish a man he actually was. He remembered how it was to catch her and how her body looked in the shining sun. He remembered how it was when she had kissed him and the true miracle that was brought forth with her presence.

It was at that moment the white light returned and he felt the mermaid’s presence again. He was no longer sad when she didn’t show up in his catch or wasn’t seen off the side of his boat. He knew that he could invoke her anytime he thought about her and he held true to this knowing.

And with that knowing, the fisherman was no longer a foolish man. He was a man who would forever have a telepathic channel of communication open; between himself and the mermaid of the sea.

I said “Sorry, I don’t have a light” and continued on.

I imagined what  Dr. Wayne Dyer would say to this man. Wayne might have been inspired by the joy in the man’s face and said “Ya know smoking’s hard, why do you do it?”

Wayne would have probably had a full conversation with the man and maybe even left an impression, causing him to look at his addiction in a new light. However, it’s usually not my way to start giving advice to a stranger on the street, sidewalk, whatever. I continued on.

A few minutes went by as I went on my walk. I hit a crosswalk and noticed on the ground was a bright red lighter. This bright red lighter was the exact thing the stranger just asked me for. What an odd coincidence I thought and continued on.

After a few seconds, I felt the urge to go back for that lighter. Imagine if it worked and I actually was able to give it to the guy. I could then have a conversation with the man about the difficulties of smoking. I went back and picked the lighter up off the ground. I flicked it and it didn’t work.

Figures, I said and tossed it aside on someone’s lawn. I proceeded to walk to the end of the street. Instead of going around the block like I’d planned, I decided to go back the way I came so I could get that lighter.

I thought about how I would give it to the man on the sidewalk.  It would be my way of pointing out the difficulties of smoking, we’d have a laugh about the fact it didn’t work, then I’d continue on.

Maybe the man would get pissed off at me and want to kick my ass. Hmmmm, I guess you never know how someone’s going to react. In any case, I would approach him with caution knowing I had my ammo in my pocket, the little red lighter I found.

I continued on to the place he was, the but the man was gone. The best that I could do was leave the red lighter standing on it’s end on the sidewalk. Better than nothing, maybe my message would be found. Somehow though, it didn’t feel quite like it would be.

Glad I have the means to blog about this experience and let any of you struggling smokers out there know that there’s an excellent bit about why smoking is more difficult than not smoking in the disc Making Your Thoughts Work for You by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer; Byron Katie

Buy it off this link and you’ll be doing me the favor of donating a couple bucks. So if you or anyone you know is interested in quitting smoking or any other addiction for that matter, you should give this one a try.

On the flipside, I also felt inspired to write 3 alternative endings to the above (true) story:

• I leave to go for a walk down the same street the next day, but this time I take a lighter with me. The man is there but already smoking a cigarette. I pull out a green lighter and light it in front of him. He laughs and says, “Need a smoke, it’s my last one” “No thanks I would say, glad that it’s your last one” and continue on.
• The man is actually at the bus stop and I see him get on the bus. Omnisciently speaking, The bus driver would ask the man to extinguish his cigarette. The man throws it on the ground and stomps it out. Then the bus driver points to a sign that says fine for littering $50. The man picks it up and comes his direction to throw it away but there is only a recycling bin (no trash). The bus driver says you’ll have to hold on to your own cigarette butt. He puts the stinking ashed cigarette in his pocket and comes to realize that smoking really is more difficult than not smoking.
• Considering the “stranger danger” scenario, I approach the man with a lighter and flick it. The man pulls out a gun and a knife and says “choose which way you want to die”. I point to the cigarette in his mouth and say “Not that way”.

If you have some more ideas for how things could pan out in this situation, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

You can distribute this story to as many people as you like and you can even add your own links to it. All I ask is that you keep the document in tact, that means all words and links. Thanks and enjoy!

Wayne laughed about his father’s fascination with pennies. It always seemed so petty to pick up a penny off the ground. To his father, pennies were a symbol of prosperity and finding them would always remind him of that.

“I’m one penny wiser,” his father would say before he picked it up and took it with him.

Now that his father had passed away, Wayne often thought about him and his habit of picking up pennies. Every time he saw a penny lying on the ground he thought of his father.

This time, Wayne stood in a public restroom and wondered if his father would have picked up the penny from the dirty sink that someone had spit in. He laughed about it and shrugged it off, figuring that his father probably would have shrugged that one off too.

He drove away and began to amuse himself imagining how far his father would actually go to become one penny wiser. Would he really have picked that penny up, washed it off and taken it home? What if it was in the toilet, would it be a symbol of abundance at the bottom of a used toilet? Probably not.

At dinner that night, his meal was $9.01. Wayne didn’t have a penny and it made him think about that one in the sink. Again he laughed, at the thought of it. With a smurk, the cashier pulled a penny from her drawer and gave it to Wayne.

“Thanks”, he said.

It was no big deal, but again he imagined having that penny from the sink he found earlier that day. He laughed at the idea of how obsessive compulsive it would be to go driving back there to that public restroom and see if it was still there. How funny it would be if he actually did that.

He could have driven back to that gas station right then, but he didn’t. Would his father have gone back for it? No, his father would have picked it up out of the sink, washed it off and taken it home. His father wouldn’t be in his predicament, he joked with himself.

When Wayne arrived home his wife brought up their money situation. It was never a good thing when she talked about money. They both wanted abundance in their lives but Wayne was always behind the 8 ball when it came to money.

If his father was watching him, he’d  say that Wayne was never willing to do what it took to make money. His father wouldn’t have told Wayne that, but it was true. When it came to creating prosperity, something was always too hard or too awkward. Wayne could always find an excuse not to follow through with his plans to make more money.

When Wayne thought of his father again, he knew he had to go back for the penny in the sink. It hit him like an epiphany and he wasn’t going to waste any time getting it. He ran out the door, jumped in his car, and sped off toward that gas station.

Everyone was driving too slow, all the stoplights were red, his car couldn’t accelerate fast enough. Then he laughed at himself again. A few minutes ago he was debating about going back for the penny and now he’s irritated he can’t get there fast enough. Wayne exhaled and reminded himself to relax.

When he got to the gas station he parked and went to the public restroom. He opened the door and stared at the sink, the penny was gone. Someone else had taken the penny and it had become their symbol of prosperity instead of his. After some disappointment, a wave of realization flooded over him.

Wayne decided right then and there that next time, the next penny he finds would be his symbol of prosperity. He would do whatever it took to get that penny if he was able to determine it was rightfully his. Even if it was at the bottom of a toilet, it would be his. It would be worth getting because prosperity was worth having even if it meant sacrifice.

Luckily, nothing in my car was broken. My car stereo was in tact, my ipod
was still there, I even had a wad of 100 dollar bills that were left alone.

The only thing missing were my Wayne Dyer CD’s. Even though I was a little
mad at first, I soon got over it when I realized that I had helped
distribute Wayne Dyer’s message through the world. His stuff is pure gold.

I can’t even believe you can just buy Wayne Dyer’s message in your local
bookstore for $20 a pop. You can’t put a price on his stuff, just rent “The power of Intention” or “Change your thoughts, change your life” and you’ll see what I mean.

The thieves that hit my car, got what they were looking for and I was glad
to help them out. What a great thing it was that I could do this. I helped
some people in need… I wish I could do this for my brother-in-law.

Inspired by simple sayings like how do you eat an elephant? And A Journey of 1000 miles begins with… watch it and you’ll see.

Each section of the Tao is short and should be simple to read and think about. I’m going to give it a shot, but will likely read 2-3 sections or so a day.

I like to read these sections until something resonates, then I let those words echo in my mind through out the day. It will often take several sections before something resonates like with me. Some would say that I’m not reading it “correctly” but at least I’m reading it.

I think it’s important to find your own way to be inspired by things like this.