Invest your love.

“Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” – Mumford & Sons (“Awake My Soul”)

Where are you investing your love?  Where are you investing your happiness?

This is a similar question to the one I asked last week about extreme possibilities. These things have been on my mind as I finish up a deadline and start planning for the rest of the year.  There are so many stories I want to tell, but limited time to tell them, so I have to sit back and think about what’s burning the very hottest inside me — not just for now, but in the long run.  That’s because I tend to think about stories in terms of series, more than one book.  More than one book means years of investment of time and effort.  So it has to mean something to me.

Will the idea I have, in this moment, be strong enough to carry me forward two years from now?  Or is it just a flash in the pan that I’ll get bored with in the space of three chapters — or the length of one book?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell, at the outset.  It’s like falling in love.  Exciting at first.  Thrilling.  For three days, three months — or, again, three chapters.

I keep mentioning that number, three.  Three chapters is usually how long it takes me to know whether there’s something real there.  Sometimes just the first page is all it takes.   I have endless files and notebooks full of false starts.   They still might have promise, but not yet.

So, again, what’s calling to you?   What will you do in the next day, or week, or month that will mean something to you?  Not just now, but in the long run?