Moose in the Kitchen

OOTLS 3 is here! Just in time to find you stuffing an oversize ham in the oven and hoping Great Aunt Violet doesn’t decide to perform a soliloquy from Othello next to the Christmas tree again.

Yes, I’m thinking it too: the first few weeks of December might not be the time to dive into something new. There are presents to buy! Trees to festoon! Gingerbread men heads to devour! Christmas sweater vests with sequined cardinals to don! But if you let little things like major holidays get in your way, well, it’s just a sleigh ride to April, people. Then you look up and suddenly it’s ten years later. AND SOON YOU’RE DEAD. And the world has gone tragically without that plaster-of-paris statue of Big Bird you longed to sculpt. Sometimes you just have to make a few steps in the right direction. Therefore! Presenting OOTLS 3:

Work On Some Creative Project Near and Dear To Your Heart Yet Somehow Always Ignored

Isn’t it stunning how something as uninspiring as cleaning the bathroom mirror or flossing your teeth always seems to get done and yet that novel you’ve been wanting to write 2003 hasn’t been started? Why is that? Because the dentist yells at you? Something about decay and doom and I hope you like this chair, bucko, because  you’ll be spending a lot of time here unless you learn to how to brush your back teeth properly.

Consider me your dentist! With less screaming about gingivitis.

I bet you have some creative project – knitting a Fair Isle sweater? penning an epic poem about the secret romance of Tupac and the Dalai Lama? a macrame wall hanging of the Last Supper? – that you’re afraid to start. Or if you’re not a great big squawking chicken like me, it’s still something you’ve managed to put off for months or years. So this OOTLS is for you fine folks who have a secret or not-so-secret project you’d like to finish sometime before you die. Death! It’s the new motivator! Not sure why I’m suddenly so melodramatic about the fragility of human life. Probably because I’ve already eaten the rough equivalent of a metric ton of butter and December’s only just begun. Hey, I’m getting old. I can’t absorb the butter the way I used to. (YES, I CAN. DON’T LISTEN, DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. YOU CAN DO IT! NOW GET CHURNING. THERE’S A TIN OF SHORTBREAD WITH MY NAME ON IT.)

How it works: Take two weeks (yes, shorter than last time) and spend whatever time you can on the project peering out from under the boulder in your stomach. Meanwhile, I’ll be plowing (stumbling?) through my own project and sending out encouraging emails with ideas and further resources and gentle prodding.

Here’s what’s different: I know I personally work harder on things when I’ve paid for them, and as the provider of said thing I would sure as hell be more dedicated to sending out worthwhile contributions to your inbox if you had plunked down a few bucks because BY GOD NOW YOU’RE EXPECTING SOMETHING. I COULD HAVE BOUGHT MYSELF A CREME BRULEE LATTE FOR THIS, WOMAN. So I concocted the Charge Money for OOTLS as an experiment to see if it brought a little more dedication to the proceedings. (For me. I’m sure you’re plenty dedicated to whatever you set out to do and FINE, RUB IT IN.)

Then I started actually needing money and I thought, well, goodness. I can’t do it now. Now that I NEED money and it isn’t just an experiment, it suddenly seems wrong. Like it violates the delicate code of blogger ethics? Or sullies the scientific premise? I have no idea. My logic can best be described as Big Fat Squawking Chicken. BRAWK!

If you’re interested: It starts on Friday, December 4 and ends Friday, December 18. Two weeks of encouragement and FRANKLY HILARIOUS (ahem) email from me for about what you’d spend at Starbucks on one of those holiday desserts masquerading as coffee. So if you want to sign up, just press that little button below. Feel the delightful velocity of being in motion on something you’ve always wanted to do. And hear the popping of my neurons as I figure out how to make it worth your five bucks. This whole asking-for-money thing so far out of my comfort zone that my comfort zone needs to apply for a new driver’s license, but it’s good to push your boundaries sometimes. Voila! BOUNDARIES PAINFULLY EXPANDED.

If you’re interested, I think you’ll find this really helpful.

Related posts:

1. Setting the Record Straight
2. Money Talk Certainly Encourages the Abuse of Caps
3. Pulling Out the Big Guns
4. OOTLS, Round 2
5. Unemployment. Or Being Employed By Life. No, Seriously.