Category: California Air Museums

That’s a headline, right? Plan B? You know Plan B. It’s the one you always have because you always need a backup plan, right? Maybe not so much…

If you really want to listen to something fun on your long holiday drive, you might listen to Arnold Schwarzenegger read his book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life. As an action hero kind of guy, he really doesn’t pull any punches.

The book is meant to help you find a way to be happy. My guess is that he’s kinda preachin’ to the choir, as the people who will go buy his book are already somewhat self-activated.

But, if you’re unhappy, maybe it will help. Perhaps you will find some degree of self-activation.

That’s the point of his book: get yourself activated. Don’t sit around wondering what to do. Figure out your vision, write it down. Make a plan to go get it. Don’t have time? He shows you how to find two hours a day to accomplish your vision.

But, he warns you that napping is for babies. And that you can only rest and relax if you are old and tired or something. He’s kinda hard on those who aren’t hale and hearty…

My favorite takeaway? F**k Plan B.

According to Arnie, the only reason you would come up with a Plan B is if you plan to fail at Plan A. Why do you need a secondary plan if your first one is good? If you are careful with Plan A, you’ll never need a Plan B.

Plan B is just an easy way out of accomplishing your vision. It’s an escape clause, which means you never planned to accomplish your vision in the first place.

F**k Plan B.

To that end, I finally released the third installment in the California Air Museums series. It’s a visit to the Commemorative Air Force, Southern California Wing.

That’s my vision: to build a library of videos, in a fun and easy-to-navigate site, for the parents of STEM students, that they might see these videos and take their kids to these museums and get them interested in engineering. Tomorrow’s engineers today! There is no Plan B for this project. Just do it. Get in the chopper!

And, the novel I’ve written. You’re a writer. You know how it goes. Do you seek a publisher, or do you publish yourself? Either way, you’re in charge of marketing. Either way, sales are up to you, bucko.

I’ve approached a few agents. They’re now mostly using a standardized submission form, which is just so de-humanizing.

Demoralising.

The farther I travel down this road, I’m starting to think that maybe self-publishing isn’t all bad.

But now I wonder: is that just a Plan B?

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You write and write and write, and then, one day, you wonder if you’re writing the right stuff… uh oh.

So, you know me. I write a lot of stuff. I’ve got this blog, a blog about pirates, a project documenting California’s air museums, and that DIY site. And all of that is on top of forever rewriting and revamping novels. And all of THAT is on top of a regular 9-5 working as, of all things, a writer!

With all of that going on, I begins to get meself a little crazy, if you know what I mean. If I’m not panicking about posting here, I’m flipping out about researching there. And where’s that damned book?

So I nominated myself CEO of my organization, John D Reinhart Enterprises, or JDRE. Chief, cook, and bottle-washer, so to speak.

In my previous existences, I would hurry up and crank out a logo and maybe some letterhead or something, thinking that doing that work would make it official and somehow bound for success. Ah, I was younger then.

In my current existence, I made myself a schedule: Mondays are for Skippity Whistles and the Museums, Tuesday is Novel Night, Wednesday is Find A Paying Freelance Gig night, and Thursday is Blog Night.

So, I’m asking myself WtF?!? What am I doing? Is THIS how I’m going to burn up the balance of my youth (all 9 remaining days…), scrambling after this insane schedule? What madness is this?

And then I think wait a minute, here. These are all red herrings…

According to MentalFloss.com, the phrase Red Herring finds its origins in Jolly Olde England, whither the huntsmen would train the fox-hunting horses to follow the smell of said dead fish, that they might keep their horsey calm during the bump and hustle of the hunt. Some poor devil would have to go out the night before and sprinkle red-dead redemption herrings wherever foxes were presumed to hide. I’m sure the foxes liked that…

Anyway, back at the schedule, I realize it ain’t real, mate. It can’t be! Writing is writing, not scheduling. Sommat ain’t right.

Monday I DID work on the air museums database. Tuesday I goofed around on my phone, for I was surely brain-fried, but the book is in the hands of the lovely-sister reader, and there’s nowt I can do about that. Wednesday I submitted a joke to Reader’s Digest, good for $25 if they like it (my wife thought it was an old groaner, and I had to tell her “Honey, that’s all I know…”).

And here it is, Thursday, and I’m tapping out this post. And I’m writing it, not because it’s Thursday and it’s on the sched, but because I wanted to tell you this story.

It is not the schedule that’s the red herring, it’s the thinking that somehow creating the schedule is the thing that will lead me to success. The schedule is a fake. Success doesn’t come from the sched. It comes from the writing.

But now there’s the scary thing that I durst not even think about. I’m daring myself to even write it down. The words are coming slowly.

It. Is. All. A. Waste. Of. Time.

What is writing, but the pouring out of what’s inside? What if what’s inside is pointless meanderings ( I mean, look at this post!)?

Nobody reads my stuff – I mean, YOU do, and I am terribly, terribly grateful for that. Thank you, most sincerely.

But no one reads my books. No one visits my sites. I know.

I know.

And yet still I persist, feverishly building and writing and crafting and wringing my hands together in the dark garret of my mind, turning key after key after key, fitting them one-by-one into the Lock of Success. Surely this one. No, well, then, this one certainly. I’d stake my life on this one over here. Key by key by key, writing this, writing that, searching for the key that will swing those golden doors open. It is a sickness. A madness.

Especially when I have a perfectly good writing job during the day. I’m a success at that, surely. It’s technical translation, of course, with the occasional promotional stuff thrown in, and never a by-line in sight. And, no, it’s not the utterances of my heart, but what if my heart is filled with candy corn and bat poop? Maybe it’d be best to keep that away from the children…

It wakes me up at night, that horrid thought. If not this, what? Perhaps there IS no golden door. What if this water IS the ocean…

But, hey, per the schedule, writing time is up, so I guess I’m done now.

I have Fridays off.