How to choose when there’s too much going on
Oh, hi friends!
What if we accepted that we probably won’t get everything done today?
Let's just say it: I probably won’t get everything done today.
Alright, so if that’s the case, what’s the one thing you definitely can’t do tomorrow?
Choose it: I definitely can’t do [X] tomorrow.
Now that’s today’s priority.
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
— John Quincy Adams
I’ve been going through old cards (yes, I save them! I am my mother’s daughter!) and was delighted to find this quote in a years-old card from my friend Nina Semczuk — she wrote it alongside her note to me. (She has an excellent monthly newsletter btw.)
Including quotes in your letters or notes to people is such a lovely idea, isn’t it?!
Sharing Your Work-in-Progress
I started writing a new musical over the summer with composer Shoshana Shattenkirk and librettist Justin Schwartz. Set during the 1798 yellow fever epidemic in New York, it follows Alexander Anderson, the first doctor at Bellevue Hospital who treated hundreds of patients and whose family died of the fever. We’ve continued chiseling away at it — and then a week ago got word that we could present one of our songs in the BMI Advanced Workshop for guest moderator Lynn Ahrens (of Ahrens & Flaherty! who wrote Ragtime, Anastasia, Once on This Island, and many more!!).
So in the last five days we Zoomed, wrote, rewrote, notated, and with the help of the wonderfully talented Lily Narbonne and Shoshana on vocals, finished our latest draft of the song “Yellow,” a duet between Alexander’s mother and wife.
Last night we received some lovely and constructive feedback from Lynn and class, so this will likely look different in a final version, but in the interest of sharing early and often, here it is. Thank you for reading and listening — and I hope this might encourage you to push something of yours over a finish line, temporary as it may be.
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You can also support my work by checking out my new motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara