Burn it down.

Tick Tock, tick tock, goes the clock.

When I wave, I lose the time I save.

My finish line inches closer by the minute.

Never a critic more tenacious.

Hardly any tolerance for lateness, has he.

Failure? No such word in my vernacular.

I rarely lose the race against myself anymore, and THAT results in victory.

So, this candle wick of max effort?

Time to burn it down.

I went slightly mad and carried a moderate level of overall unhealthiness for a couple of months mid-summer this pandemic year. I was pushing hard, building all my website content, and then kept the throttle pinned to get it across the finish line. I had 19 hours per day awake and 18.5 of them were properly maximized for that mid-year web build effort. There was no deadline other than the one I put in front of myself. I pushed because I wanted to. And I loved the pursuit. I am incredibly pleased with the result, thanks to my rockstar creative / marketing / web guy in MSP, Spencer Ploessl.

Ten podcast episodes have been churned out in the last four and a half months and although I consider all of those published recordings true gems, my golden goose is my current work, my life’s memoir. The memoir is the work I am pushing on right now and the one I am lighting the candle for, right now. The podcast episodes have helped me develop much of my own thought about different moments in my life that I had not totally sorted out yet. And although each podcast episode has occupied more that 20 hours each, on average, just for editing, the feedback I get from people is that it helps. Especially now, it helps.

This current effort, the memoir, has occupied most of my brain capacity for a little more than nine months exactly, starting on February 1st this year. I do not feel I procrastinate much more than the average American but the reality of the amount of work still left to finish is hitting me hard. This book,  written to my two children, carries with it a self-imposed deadline of December 25th this year. I plan to have it done, sitting under the tree, all wrapped up, one each for my two kids on Christmas morning.

Time to cram and get this massive undertaking across the finish line!

For the next 30 days, there will not be a new Lies Between Us podcast episode published. Most likely, no blog either, until after Thanksgiving. If you are looking for me before turkey day, I am not around. I will not have cell service for most of the next 28 days while I shack up as a recluse in my northwest Wisconsin log cabin, sans all technological connections to the outside world. I will be writing, and I will only be checking my most critical messages when I venture into town once a week or so for supplies.

So please pardon my inattentiveness while I burn through a lot of proverbial candles. And please excuse my vacancy from my otherwise regularly-occupied social channels until after turkey day.

188,495 words of my life’s truths have been written so far. I still have more to do and then the vicious editing begins. I expect my word count to grow to about 220,000 words before the slashing of words, sentences, and paragraphs gets underway. I will probably edit that 220k down by almost half. Dancing back and forth between the 23 chapters has kept me on my toes and now I am adding months and months of collected handwritten notes to my 12 pt. Word.doc. These, the handwritten paper notes that are scribbled and filling two wire-bound notebooks, are my notes while on the go, between the daily formal appointment with my laptop keys.

Happy turkey day prepping and I off to burn down those candles.

I will not cut my ear off, I promise.

Tick Tock, tick tock.

~ Bird over and out. Roger that.