In The Mindful Woman, Sue Patton Thoele says:
"Whenever I begin to write a book, the imperial imp in charge of writers in early stages of projects sees to think that it would be great fun to have me act, feel, and express exactly the opposite of my current topic."
Well Hell's Bells, I know him (imps are hims, right?) - he's been sitting on my shoulder for quite awhile now.
Unfortunately I don't have the good sense that Sue Patton Thoele appears to have. In her book she went on (from the above quote) to explain how that darn imp annoyed her while she was working on each project. And it appeared that 'ole Sue did one project and then another - what a concept!
Me - I've been tackling a few at a time - and the imps are dancing in circles around me (yep, the imperial imp seems to have helpers). I think they're also laughing!
I think my imps are from a different branch though - mine come to call when I'm heading toward the end of a project.
During the past several weeks, while I've been working on a body-awareness/body-mindfulness product (a compliment to Choosing Me!), I've been swimming in shame around the whole body-image thing.
And I picked the same time to transition notes from a fun Square-Peg telecall into a little e-book - sharing tools for taking the negative power out of obligations (or "shoulds", as I call them in the e-book).
So - while working on Droppin' Like Leaves (that's the name of the e-book) I've got imps dancing around me and singing in 3 part harmony. One sings: "You gotta do THIS!" and another: "Ohmyword, you're gonna forget to get to all these!" and the third: "Holy $@#!, you're not working fast enough!" I'm "shoulding" on myself all over the place (or...it's the imps! That's it - it's the imps - I forgot for a minute).
I've got a few smaller things in the works too - so all total I think there are 376 imps assigned to my case. And just like Sue Patton Thoele said - I'm acting, feeling and expressing the exact opposite of everything I'm working on. Ugh! and Sigh! and Holy $@#! (to quote one of my imps).
Again it's the classic case of teaching what you need to know - and I guess it's very obvious that I need to know an awful lot! Sigh again!!
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