Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "rwa-con"
Deadlines: My Saving Grace
Nothing is real to me until about three weeks before it happens. Saturday, at a book signing where not much was happening, it occurred to me that three weeks from that date I would be modeling my Catherine Parr dress at the Romance Writers of America annual convention.
Yikes.
It's been fun planning the costume, making the underpinnings, and anticipating the "big" dress, which I hired done lest I overstep the bounds of my sewing talents. (Pictures of the process will be up on my FB page this week: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/...)
But now it has become real. I promised I would step out in front of many, many people and pretend I know something about history. I promised to lead nine other women onto the stage (only one of whom I've met) and make them look good, too.
Suddenly details matter. Shoes? Hair? And what about the fact that I need my glasses in order to read the scripts? Very un-Tudor like. And then there is the matter of Being Seen and Judged by Others. One of the model/authors, Jeannie Lin, did a great video blog about that terrorizing prospect. (See it at http://www.jeannielin.com/index.php/v...).
A deadline serves a purpose other than striking fear into my heart, however. It makes me concentrate. I start my lists of things to do, things to take, things to remember. I practice, going over in my mind different scenarios and making sure I can handle them all. It's a great word, when you think on it. Deadline, the point at which anticipation dies and reality shouts, "It's alive!"
Yikes.
It's been fun planning the costume, making the underpinnings, and anticipating the "big" dress, which I hired done lest I overstep the bounds of my sewing talents. (Pictures of the process will be up on my FB page this week: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/...)
But now it has become real. I promised I would step out in front of many, many people and pretend I know something about history. I promised to lead nine other women onto the stage (only one of whom I've met) and make them look good, too.
Suddenly details matter. Shoes? Hair? And what about the fact that I need my glasses in order to read the scripts? Very un-Tudor like. And then there is the matter of Being Seen and Judged by Others. One of the model/authors, Jeannie Lin, did a great video blog about that terrorizing prospect. (See it at http://www.jeannielin.com/index.php/v...).
A deadline serves a purpose other than striking fear into my heart, however. It makes me concentrate. I start my lists of things to do, things to take, things to remember. I practice, going over in my mind different scenarios and making sure I can handle them all. It's a great word, when you think on it. Deadline, the point at which anticipation dies and reality shouts, "It's alive!"
