Day 5 or “How About I Reward You With a Freshly Pressed?”

**Disclaimer: this post is having an identity crisis.  I’ve changed its name twice now.  I can’t decide which I like better.  The alternate is “Day 5, Otherwise Known as Day AWESOME!”  I apologize for any confusion or discomfort this may cause.**

Gosh, where do I even start?  It’s almost 9 pm here in Santa Monica, and I’m trying to eek this out before the clock strikes twelve.  It is, after all, Day 5 of The Experiment, no matter what other plans Freshly Pressed has.

I’d really like to take you through every minute of today–every crazy, whirlwind, dreamy moment–and give you pictures to boot.  But, I gotta level with ya–I don’t have time for that right now if I’m to continue meeting my goal of a blog a day.  I’ll make you a deal, though–if you promise to come back, I’ll run the whole thing down for you tomorrow, complete with illustrations.  Deal?

For now, I’m still in awe.  I’ve been going full steam ahead since about 9 am, when my inbox first heralded the arrival of something special.  Not only did I suddenly find myself smack in the middle of sudden blogstardom, but I had a mean deadline to meet today.  The last thing I needed was another reason to obsess over my blog.  Before you start throwing things (like Malibu bottles) at my daft head, I’M NOT COMPLAINING!  Ha, not even close.  I just mean that it was an insane day–of the best kind–so I apologize for the timestamp on this bad boy.  I also must offer my olive branch for not yet responding to any of the amazingly supportive and generous comments I’ve gotten today.   I’ve wanted to–believe me, it took every ounce of my willpower to totally log off this afternoon so I could have any hope of scoring a couple of gigs I’m up for later in the week–but I haven’t been able to.  I guess it’s a good thing my self-control won the arm wrestling match of its life against my ego.  It usually doesn’t.  But what can I say?  Ol’ SC is a clutch player, I tell you.  CLUTCH.

But I digress.

My point is that before I sleep tonight, I will lovingly tend to all of the wondrous greetings and cheers you’ve been kind enough to leave behind for me.  I am so excited to meet all of you and I am beyond humbled and grateful that you clicked, you read, and you “get it”!  I know you can relate when I say I just never know if what I see in my own brain quite translates to the page–er, screen.  It’s tremendously gratifying to see all of the “me toos!” amongst you.

And as for the rest of you–you know, the ones who believed I had something worth saying before WordPress did–I write for you.  I’ve always written for you.  And that won’t change.  It’s nice that a few other someones who don’t share my DNA or FB wall think I’m worth it, too.  But I know you Early Believers will be around long after my hit count slinks back down the alley from whence it came.

Thanks for making my Freshly Pressed day amazing

More than anything, I’m left reeling in amazement at what happens as I continue to leap.  Not tiptoe, or scurry…not shuffle or crawl…but LEAP!  Like, with everything.  I started this blog back in October when I took the very first leap as a way to document whether a net would truly appear or not.  You might remember how I got a book contract a mere four months after I left my ten-year career (and believe me, I toiled over that decision for months…even a year or more).  If you weren’t with us back then, take a peek here.  That was the start of this whole thing.

Since then, I’ve been trying to make my way in this freelance/writing/I-hope-I hit-the-jackpot-but-if-not-at-least-can-I-make-enough-to-eat forest.

The last few months have been tough.  Luckily, Bark’s been kickin, so I’ve been living off of that pretty much.  But the writing’s been non-existent and the slump has been an evil, evil bastard…so when I accepted that challenge Coach McGoates put before me less than a week ago to blog EVERY SINGLE DAY, I felt like I had finally made the turn.  I just didn’t know how big of a turn it would be in 5 short days.  Let me repeat.  Last Friday, I agreed to go from blogging once a month (or less, if I wasn’t inspired) to blogging every day for a week, just to get myself writing.  Just to see what would happen.  Well something happened, alright.  The universe just high-fived me and bought me a round of Miami Vices, all at once.  Anyone want one?

Please, take one.  Join me in raising a glass to LEAPING.  To being caught in a freaking black hole and being willing to fight to stick a hand out.  To being presented with and recognizing an opportunity to grow–and to taking it.  To knowing that creating the life I want is not always going to be easy or inspiration-filled.  Sometimes, it takes good ol’ fashioned my-quads-are-burning-can-we-stop-now-WORK.  Sometimes, I have to look that mean ol’ bastard apathy in the face.  And then slap the smile right off it.

You know, Mr. Coach always likes to ask me how I measure success, how I want to celebrate things, or reward myself for achievements.  Going into this challenge, I told him (like I always do), the process itself would be the reward.  And I meant it.  I felt like if I could make it through a whole week of blogging daily, I would have discovered it was possible and I would have created enough momentum for it to maybe stick around a little.  And if nothing else, it would be a big F YOU to the monster of slumpville lurking in the shadows.  Of course, I pointed out, I’d use the hit counts and comments on my blog to keep me going when the times got tough.  And I reminded him that obviously, the dream of any blogger is to get discovered–for the right person at the right time to stumble across the right blog–and that I was no different.  He proclaimed, “I fully believe the right person at the right time will see you.”  And I said, “I hope you’re right.  But either way, I’m going to do this.  It doesn’t matter what the outcome is.  I’m just going to commit, and I’m going to leap.  It’s worked for me so far.”

Little did I know, Freshly Pressed was even within the realm of possibility.  Mind you, the post they picked up was an old one.  But I fully believe my sudden increase in posting and traffic had a big hand in this.

So thank you, universe, for catching me as I continue to hurl myself off cliffs in the darkest of night, time and time again.  And thank you, kind readers, for being there with flashlights…just in case.

xo