Faithchick: Taxes and Book Writing

Taxes and Book Writing

I’m 99% done with my taxes! Does anyone else dread this job as much as I do? Because I’m a words, not a numbers, person, I sometimes stare are the piles of paper and receipts and ask Now what? I have scraps of paper with costs written on them, cash receipts and heaps of records to sift through. The way I’ve learned to get through the project is to pattern it after the way I write books—one step at a time. When I was getting my master’s degree, one of my projects was to journal how I wrote a book from start to finish—how I was feeling, what I was thinking, what was tempting me away from my keyboard, that sort of thing. At one point in the book, I still hadn’t decided what my hero’s motivation for his behavior should be and was royally stuck. (To jar my brain loose, I took a shower and stayed in there until I figured out his motivation! I was very clean….) But the point of my journal was that I could do anything if I took it one step at a time, didn’t give up or get discouraged and simply persisted. I learned not to panic if a story wasn’t coming together. Instead I just chipped away at it one tiny bit at a time until the story began to reveal itself. (It’s a little like knowing that inside a huge block of marble there is a beautiful statue and if you chip at it long enough, it will come out.) I treat taxes the same way. Don’t panic. Do one step at a time. Be patient. Know that the true numbers are in their somewhere. And it works! Of course, it’s probably true of all of life—persistence, patience, positive attitude will get us there eventually. So, to those of you who haven’t finished your taxes, keep going! And to those of you who have—thanks for inspiring me to start earlier next year.