Monday morning, great weekend, gaining my bearings here, 3^rd cup o’ Joe, and my other eye is starting to open at last. Dreary and rainy outside, feels like Seattle this morning, but this is the perfect weather for grant writing actually. It is hard to concentrate inside when it’s a gorgeous spring day outside.

This quote by Thomas Edison perfectly describes my transient ability to write well, “There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.”

The labor of thinking is what makes it a challenge to be a freelance grant writer.  Grant writing requires intensive thinking for extended periods of time. It requires fastidious attention to a thousand details. It requires the mental flexibility of a Chinese acrobat in editing and revising. It requires holding the whole in your mind while crafting the specifics.

I treat the hard work of thinking like exercise sometimes; I defer the pain and sweat. I find distractions that are as Edison would call them, “expedient.” A trash can that needs emptying – not customarily high on my list of priorities – can suddenly bolt to the forefront of my mind as a convenient escape from a stubborn program design.

Every freelance grant writer needs an inner drill sergeant.  I need that intimidator inside barking at me to push harder, not to give up, to exceed my perceived limitations. Ignore the trash can! Ignore the breezy weather and sunny garden outside!  My job is to grind out the narrative and slow up only to wipe the sweat off my cerebrum from time to time.

So today I endeavor to engage fully in the labor of thinking and avoid the delicious appeal of the day and thrust aside the mindless diversion of menial chores that would satiate my brain’s desire to swing in a hammock.

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