In about 24 hours, I’ll be loading up the car to drive to Palm Springs to crank out the book.

Believe it or not, I am ready. I am prepared. I am exactly where I want to be. This weekend, I synthesized four complicated databases into one, categorized (and subcategorized) more than 200 free and bargain online tools, created a mail merge template, sorted the tools by category, then merged the data into 9 chapters.

Now I need to calmly, coolly, methodically work through the tools in each chapter to produce the nuts and bolts of the book. As I write, I’m going to keep a running list of the tasks that need to be completed in the 2 weeks after I return from the trip, and my assistant and I are on track to click through them to turn the thing in before the deadline.

Holy crap. It’s working.

When I say “believe it or not,” I expect many of you may not believe it. My mother is amazed I didn’t just rush into this and get overwhelmed. I am pretty sure my father has a pool going at his work on whether or not I’ll pull this off. And I’m kind of flabbergasted that I’ve made a plan and am sticking to it.

I expect the next week to be a bitch. It’ll be boring, grinding, exhausting. There’s nothing inherently fun about pounding out page after page after page with a concrete deadline staring at you.

I’m probably not going to dress much. I’m going to sit in a dark condo with just the computer screen glowing. I’m going to keep weird hours, eat unappetizing food, panic that I’m not going to finish, take for granted that I will and waste some time. Oh, and there will be chocolate. You can bet on that. And as soon as I get there, I’ll use Layar, a free tool that people recommended, to map out the location of the nearest cupcakes.

The reason I’m escaping is so that I don’t have to be a girlfriend, a runner, a copywriter, a daughter, a friend or even a friendly human being for the week. I’m going to morph into a moody, intense writer with a sole purpose: finish. the. book.

Although I am dreading the grind somewhat, I’m so excited I can hardly wait for my adventure to begin. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I think it’s going to work. Everything else about my plan to write this book in three months has gone well, and I have no reason to doubt that I can pull this off. Ok, I actually have a THOUSAND doubts, but no real logic behind them!

Woohoo! Off I go….

So, the contract is signed, and the book is begun. Holy smokes.

The entire manuscript, complete with hundreds of graphics, dozens of contributions and about 200 pages, is due to the publisher May 1. That’s 54 days from today. Before I begin writing, I have to collect and organize an insane amount of data. I’ve been very busy with inquiries to free and low-cost tool vendors to get them to fill out forms about their products, plus I’ve been querying professionals about their favorite tools. And did I mention I’ve yet to begin writing? And, for whatever reason, my phone has been ringing twice as much lately with new projects from existing and new clients.

The workload is overwhelming. I’m officially daunted.

Every single minute that I am not working means guilt (including now when I’m taking time to update the blog), but I’m being as proactive as I can possibly be. I put D.J. on notice that most of my workdays for the next few weeks are going to be long ones, and I’ll probably be working every weekend. I’ve canceled haircuts, put off health care appointments, turned down visits and trips with friends.  I’ve warned friends and family that I’m strung tighter than the strap on my g-string after holiday feasting. I’ve increased the cupcake budget, and I’ve hired a temporary employee to cut, paste, follow up on inquiries and organize while I continue writing my regular stuff. She starts tomorrow.

And I’ve taken an extra step, a crazy step, an indulgent step. I just made a reservation for my first-ever writer’s retreat — a week in a nice condo in Palm Springs, CA. My retreat costs almost as much as I will receive as an advance for this book, and I’ll lose my regular revenue because I’ll leave my day job behind. My inner accountant is screaming — this decision does not make financial sense in the slightest. It’s logical to visit either my friend who owns a farm in Iowa or a buddy who lives in a house in the woods of Oklahoma. Both of those locales are more than an hour from a Wal-Mart. But I need to keep weird hours, withdraw from society and be a bitch when necessary. I can’t afford to be friendly or social, and my friends are too wonderful to ignore like that.

D.J. is 1000 percent behind my decision. “This is one of the most important projects in your career,” he said, “and you have to make an investment in yourself to make this succeed.” He’s right. Yet. Still. Umm. That’s a lot of money, and what if I get there and see the blank document as a blank wall? I’ll have wasted all this money, put my clients on hold and will be utterly disappointed in myself.

When my friend Troy was writing his book, he locked himself in the family motor home for several days to work. And he succeeded. Frankly, I think I will, too.

I take that back. I KNOW I will succeed. I have to succeed, and I’ve laid the groundwork to do so. I just need to put in the hours, and I’m ready to crank.

54 days.

At 4 this morning, I gave up sleeping. Blame the rich lobster tail and stuffed baked potatoes we had for dinner last night, or perhaps the 10,000 things I have on my mind, or maybe the faint smell of beach bonfires that sometimes linger in the air now that I live right on the beach. Whatever the reason, I found myself this morning with a rare opportunity to GET SOMETHING DONE.

Perfect, I thought. I can catch up with my Twitter friends. Or better yet, I can start on the outline of my nonfiction book. Or maybe try to empty out the email inbox, or edit my friend’s resume, or perhaps finally set up a Facebook page. Oh yeah, I need to add a few more entries to the Avenue Z Toolbox. Oohh… I have it…. I wrote 1500 words on my novel last Sunday with the San Diego writer’s group. Why don’t I add to that?

Or…

Or…

Or…

So now it’s close to 6 a.m. The possibilities of my precious, uninterrupted time period were too much for me. I ended up hanging the laundry, drinking some Alka-Seltzer, cleaning up a gift the cat left for me, making coffee, and sitting at this computer checking stats and reading about how Michelle Obama thinks their new puppy, Bo, is “kind of crazy.” (To my credit and our country’s embarrassment, this story made headlines everywhere.)

Absolutely nothing is wrong with the way I just spent the last two hours. My activities were normal and necessary (except for the puppy news), and I have nothing to be embarrassed about. If I had added those items to the list of possibilities for what I could do this morning, I would feel like I had accomplished something. Instead, I feel as if I completely wasted my window of opportunity.

I faced two obstacles. All the items on my list were important, and all of them would have filled the relatively small chunk of time I had free. I had no way of prioritizing these random to do thoughts. They kept materializing like popcorn as I poured the coffee. And since I couldn’t choose, I did none of the above.

I have a great way of dealing with my work tasks, but I haven’t yet applied that system to tasks that don’t involve direct revenue generation. For work, I write a to do list each day, on real paper. All the upcoming tasks I have for each client are listed, and those that are due today (or in the immediate future) receive a swipe of a yellow highlighter. That notepad stays directly in front of my keyboard all day, and my close of business doesn’t happen until all the yellow line items are gone.

But I don’t have such a list for my other hopes and dreams. I’m still trying to find direction with the book ideas. I still haven’t figured out how I want to brand myself in social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). I’m revamping Avenue Z Toolbox, so I’m not going to pour a lot of effort into building traffic until I have the new look (coming soon!). Until I truly embrace a plan for my future endeavors, I fear I’ll keep shuffling in place instead of moving forward when I have a precious window of free time.

Oh well. Perhaps more coffee will help.

This morning was my first run of the season with Team in Training, the fundraising athletic arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As I approached the aid station, I was working pretty hard.

“Did you wear sunscreen? You’re really burnt,” the volunteer said as she handed me Gatorade and some Goldfish crackers (I really love the Goldfish).

“I’m good,” I answered, still crunching. “I put sunscreen on this morning.”

“Oh, must be your red hair — you’ve got that redhead’s skin.”

A redhead? My gosh, woman! I’m not a redhead! I’m a brunette. I was born a brunette. I want to be a brunette. I think of myself as a brunette. The box of dye I buy to ensure I’m a brunette says “Dark Brown.” Is she blind?

But she’s not the first to call me a redhead. One time I was with someone else’s redheaded kids, and someone said, “I bet they got all that red hair from you.” I literally looked around to see if she was talking to someone else.

When others look at me, they see things that I don’t. I look in the mirror and see brown hair, thus I think of myself as a brunette. Now obviously it doesn’t make a scintilla of difference whether or not my hair is brown or red, but what happens if I’m seeing my business persona with the same mirror?

A new friend from Twitter, Global Patriot, talked the other day about a cool networking event he attended. The concept was kind of like speed dating, only it was speed networking. People interviewed each other for a few minutes and then jotted down a few key words that described their new contacts. At the end of the event, each participant had a word cloud of words that other people would use to describe him.

What an excellent idea — learning to see yourself as others see you. Do you come across as overbearing when you think you’re being enthusiastic? Do you see yourself as quietly polite, and could that be mistaken for introverted? Learning how others see you doesn’t mean you have to change yourself to meet someone else’s expectations. But perhaps discovering what other people notice about you will help you match your goals with the path that leads you there.

Hey, do you think she thinks I’m taller than I am? And thinner?

PS — Got 5 bucks? Please share… I’m raising money for Team in Training in honor of my mom.