H. Claire Taylor's Blog, page 2

What I was ACTUALLY saying was…

My husband tried to call it a Texas thing, where people get up to leave a party and then everyone just continues the conversation standing up by the front door. I don’t think that’s a Texas thing. I think that’s a tipsy person thing.

Anyway, I found myself in one of these the other night, let’s call it a Texas Roundup, with a bunch of people who share about 70% of my political views. This is a dangerous percentage to share with a group. Maybe the most dangerous. It’s also about the most you c...

Top Books of 2018

Writers need to read.

No, let me back up.

Good writers need to read.

Lousy writers can keep on not reading and keep on sucking at telling stories. It’s an incredibly lucrative approach to publishing, turns out.

But as someone who identifies as a perfectly okay writer and hopes to one day be a good writer, I knew I needed to get my ass in gear.

It all started at the end of 2015 when I realized that I’d only read something like 8 books that entire year. Then I multiplied that by the number...

Wrap-up – My Five Failures

I straight up forgot to post the last few nights. It was like my mind knew I would be ending this soon and was like, Thank god! I can cross something off the list! 

What list? The literal list of projects I have going on that I need to wrap up. It’s long.

So here’s the wrap-up post.

I finished the book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing last week. It’s a book all about timing–when is the best time of day to do specific type of work, how does one get off to a good start, when is th...

Day Twenty-Five – My Five Failures

I think I’m going to get to Day 30 and quit this mess.

I might still go for the things I want to be okay failing at, but I’m not going to blog about it. This is yet another project I don’t have time for.

I didn’t attempt any of my failures today. I didn’t have time. I don’t have time for half the shit I’ve committed to, and it’s time to hack away at it with a machete. For the moment, I think managing three pen names and launching a consulting side hustle is enough projects. The rest would be...

Day Twenty-Four – My Five Failures

Today hasn’t been much of a failure, objectively speaking, but it’s felt like one, so I guess it is one.

It wasn’t so much that I took a stab at my five goals and failed. The sense of failure came from things outside of my five and permeated everything. 

I need to get this damn cat a good home, but I’m so behind on everything else that I’m spending my days catching up and can’t put the effort into getting him outta here. I also don’t want to rush it and place him somewhere not good.

I did com...

Day Twenty-Three – My Five Failures

I am beyond tired, but I made progress on the story consulting business today.

Also found out the cat doesn’t have any contagious diseases, so that’s good. Hopefully I’ll find him a good home soon and get back to your regularly scheduled program.

And, yes, it’s a him, not a her. Turns out I didn’t actually know what a cat penis looked like.

I’ve been neglecting McSweeney’s, standup and soccer, but what can you do? I got a lot of shit going on. I’ll hit one of them tomorrow, though to make su...

Day Twenty-Two – My Five Failures

Today was an interesting priority shift.

The cat that had been ruining my ability to work was scheduled for a vet appointment this morning (finally!) and about 10 minutes before we needed to leave she (actually, I just discovered like 30 minutes ago that its a he), took off and didn’t look back. We searched everywhere, but I figure he was hiding somewhere away from the construction noises. 

So, yay! No cat to keep me from my work.

Only, I was worried sick about him. Obviously, he can take car...

Day Twenty – My Five Failures

***Cat photos inclosed***

Another day where I got nothing accomplished. I just accepted it today, though, and I was happier for it.

Update on the cat: the shelter wouldn’t take her. She was one of the cats that had been brought in, neutered and released into the wild again. I guess that’s the downside of being a no-kill city: they have to be selective about which cats they take in, so they stick with kittens and release the rest. 

She’s definitely not meant to be a stray, though. She’s not fe...

Day Nineteen – My Five Failures

I got next to nothing productive accomplished today unless you consider keeping my dogs from being attacked by a cat “productive.”

I do believe that when you set your mind to achieve something, the Universe says, “Cool. Let’s see how bad you really want it.” You get sick, another shiny new idea comes along, or, say, a stray cat follows you home from your walk, meowing and rubbing against your legs so frantically, you can hardly take a step without kicking her. 

This has been a saga that has p...

Day Eighteen – My Five Failures

Part of today’s failure was lessening the extent of possible failure, and I have to say, it felt great. Dunno if that’s a good sign.

The failure this pertains to is the story consulting. Besides doing some more hunting for clients to test it out in beta for free, I made a decision about the prices for the products. I’d based them off of what I felt comfortable asking and what I thought people would be willing to pay, and then I doubled them because my work husband told me to triple them. It f...