{"id":93,"date":"2015-02-09T17:02:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T22:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/?p=93"},"modified":"2015-02-09T17:02:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T22:02:04","slug":"joyful-overestimation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2015\/02\/09\/joyful-overestimation\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyful Overestimation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m the kind of writer who joyfully overestimates his own ability every time I sit down to type. \u00a0And I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m not the only one&#8230; \u00a0I smile, pull open my laptop, look at the pages before me and think, &#8220;finish editing the whole book\u00a0today? hell yeah!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One paragraph later: &#8220;finish the whole chapter today? \u00a0Of course!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thirty minutes and a few sentences later: &#8220;finish the paragraph today? \u00a0OBVIOUSLY!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And then I get three sentences done.<\/p>\n<p>But even that doesn&#8217;t diminish the feeling I get when I start working. \u00a0I wish I could bottle up that\u00a0feeling&#8211;the one at the beginning of a writing session&#8211;and maybe sell it to Congress, who might actually get something done for a change&#8230;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_94\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-94\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/zachbarnesonwriting.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/02\/winter_scenery_2-wallpaper-1680x1050.jpg?ssl=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-94\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/zachbarnesonwriting.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/02\/winter_scenery_2-wallpaper-1680x1050.jpg?resize=300%2C188&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Thanks Daniel Zedda for your talent in photography.  Or photoshop.\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-94\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thanks, nameless\u00a0photographer,\u00a0for your talent in photography. Or photoshop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Anyway, this all goes back to expectations; specifically the expectations we set\u00a0for ourselves (I believe I wrote a few posts on this, a while ago&#8230; cheque it out <a href=\"https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/tag\/inspiration\/\">https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/tag\/inspiration\/<\/a>). \u00a0Some days writing is like hitting all the green lights, and other days it&#8217;s not at all. \u00a0Just like some days just sync up with the greater universe, who gives you the thumbs up to go do your thing and everything is groovy. \u00a0The catch is that you won&#8217;t have those great days (or those terrible days) unless you do you thing *<em>every<\/em> day. \u00a0Does that mean that persistence is the key to awesome? \u00a0Maybe, I honestly don&#8217;t know, but it sure does work for me!<\/p>\n<p>When I get three sentences done, I don&#8217;t berate myself because I didn&#8217;t live up to my expectations. \u00a0That would be silly. \u00a0I might get a tad frustrated, but that goes away when I think about tomorrow, and that I&#8217;ll be able to try again because, eventually, this work will pay off. \u00a0Thus, joyful overestimation sans judgement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cool thing<\/strong>: I&#8217;ve got the\u00a0first chapter of AVENGARDE absolutely where I want it, and I&#8217;m going to post it up here on Friday for all y&#8217;all to comment all over. \u00a0Woo. \u00a0<strong>End, cool thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I\u2019m on facebook at:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zachbarnesonwriting\"><span class=\"s2\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zachbarnesonwriting<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">And Twitter: @ZacharyBarnes4<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Like or follow me if you enjoy\u00a0the blog!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Don\u2019t steal\u00a0my words. \u00a0They\u2019re mine. \u00a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m the kind of writer who joyfully overestimates his own ability every time I sit down to type. \u00a0And I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m not the only one&#8230; \u00a0I smile, pull open my laptop, look at the pages before me and think, &#8220;finish editing the whole book\u00a0today? hell yeah!&#8221; One paragraph later: &#8220;finish the whole chapter today? \u00a0Of course!&#8221; Thirty minutes and a few sentences later: &#8220;finish the paragraph today? \u00a0OBVIOUSLY!&#8221; And then I get three sentences done. But even that doesn&#8217;t diminish the feeling I get when I start working. \u00a0I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[21,27,29,50,52],"tags":[61,65,69,94,112,113,118,132,141,148,204],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}