Embracing setbacks...but maybe not just yet.

Good evening.

Funny how different things can be in 24 hours.  24 hours ago, I was planning on how many times I was going to go to the gym this week yet.  I was eager to use my new yoga mat at a class my friend Dee was teaching.  I had a goal, 24 hours ago, to start training for a 5K this spring.

24 hours later, I'm praying the gym can cancel or suspend my membership until further notice.  24 hours later, I know I won't need a class to use my yoga mat, because there's a slight chance I'll have to sleep on it at some point.  24 hours later, we are where we were two years ago at this very same time.

Two years ago my husband lost his job.  He never saw it coming.  Everything was fine, fine fine.  Then BAM.  the old "We're going in a new direction and we're not taking you with us."

He was out of work for 6 weeks.  Not a long time by any standards these days, but certainly a very scary 6 weeks.  He found a job in the same business, doing the same thing, for slightly more money.  It seemed like a really nice, family centered place.  And everything, for nearly two years, was fine, fine fine.  We even got a Christmas card from his boss.

Yesterday, he was fired.  Again...with no warning.  This time, because his boss wanted to hire someone else...and that someone else had just gotten fired from his job, a job he kept over numerous offers from the boss.  I guess, when you've been fired, even a job you've passed on five times looks good.  So, boss finally gets his wet dream of an employee.  Employee gets to work with people he used to work with, people who really didn't like him the first time around.  Meanwhile, my husband is kicked out the door with no warning and very little in the way of severance.  (They didn't even give him his check that he had coming today.   He has to wait until it's been "processed.")

But I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me.  Not really.  Sure, I'm at a low point in my faith in pretty much everything tonight.  My husband is the dream employee...he's hardworking, college educated, quick learning, great with people, and he'll skip lunches, days off, and weekends to do what needs doing.  And he got dumped because the apple of the boss's eye got canned two days ago and now deigns to work there.

No, I'm not telling you this make you feel sorry for me or my family.  We will, with much prayer and hard work, get through this just like we've gotten through everything else.  I'm telling you this, my writing friends, because I know every one of you has a story like this.  And, if not a story, a setback, something that can, and does, keep you from your goal of writing for a living.

There's no money in writing.  Not really.  Not for most.  Sure, if your name is James Patterson, or Snooki, you've got the steady writing income.  But for the vast majority of authors, we all have to work a J. O. B. to pay the bills between royalty checks.

The temptation is out there, certainly has been for me, to drop writing totally and focus on making money.  Just work two, three jobs and pay the bills and give up the stories in my head for something more solid, more steady.

This is when it's gut check time.  I work full time.  I write in the late and early hours of the day and on weekends.  Those are times of the day I could fill with a second paycheck while my husband looks for work and trains for more job skills that might get him employed for a year or two, until the next nepotism train pulls into the station.

I could do that...

Or I could embrace this as a moment to really focus on what I love most and maybe turn that into something big for my husband and my family.

Hey, if he's not working, he'll be doing those projects around the house. Which means the house will be in cleaner, better shape, which means I'm more apt to come home and feel like I could write a chapter or two.  I could crank out Two Elsie books and finish the new novel by year's end.

This could be good for my writing career.  Adversity is what we authors live on, and frankly, I live in the suburbs of a mid sized Midwest city. 

I could...I will...embrace this setback.

Just maybe not today.

Poe and Melville didn't have this problem...or did they?

Hello my friends!

Some weeks ago I talked about going back to my roots of writing, and putting words to actual paper because I had fewer freedoms on my computer at work with my new job.

I'm finding odd times to put ideas and chapters down on paper...that's not the problem.  In fact, I might just be writing more than I have most of this year.

The problem is...now that it's on notebook paper, when do I have time to actually get my brilliant words to a form that oh, maybe an agent or an editor might look at?

See, my handwriting is barely legible...so while focusing my creative time with a notebook is a good thing, the business end of writing rears its ugly head once again and once again I'm faced with  age old question:  WHEN CAN I WRITE?

Spellcheck?  I have no need of spell check!  Opium, alcohol, and some good lovin' from my 13 year old cousin/wife are all I need to be brilliant.

The writers of yore  (It's a word...I think) didn't have this problem.  Authors back in the early days could turn in hand written copy and it would be just fine thank you.  Of course, writers of yore also had opium and alcohol addictions, lousy health care, poverty...

...wait...change opium to chocolate and you've just described most of the writers I know now!  Maybe that's why so many great authors died penniless, even though their works are considered landmarks of literature now.  Maybe spellcheck and a perfectly clean copy was all they needed to be appreciated in their own time.

Maybe if Herman had studied editing and worked on focus of thought, "Moby Dick" wouldn't be a brilliant, timeless tale wrapped in about 700 pages of cumbersome snooze.

In our day and age, dependence on technology in all aspects of the writing process is pretty much the status quo.  So it's a matter of that delicate juggling act...again...that most of us have to do to get our masterpieces to a form that the world can read.

Or, we can bring back penmanship classes...

I'm doomed.

Now, while I waddle in my self loathing for my lack of penmanship skills, the rest of you GO FORTH AND WRITE!

Juggling writing and big changes in your real life.

Good morning!

So today is the final day for me at my job.  Next week I start a 3rd shift job working in a completely different industry.  On the surface it might seem like I've lost my mind, but this is a positive change for me and for my family I promise you.

What is going to be interesting is how I adjust my schedule.  How do I balance work, family, writing, and sleep when my work time is when the rest of the world is sleeping?  And where do I find time to write now that I'll be working a job where sitting and writing fiction for hours on end is definitely NOT acceptable?

Well, my friends, I've plotted out a plan that schedules my days fairly rigidly.  I know I won't always stick to the plan, but I also know that the old adage "failing to plan is planning to fail" is all too true. So I've got a road map of how my days are going to go and hopefully, fingers crossed, I will have the discipline to train myself for this new, far more rigorous life.

But I'm not alone.  This is a very uncertain world we live in and people change jobs all the time.  More and more of us are working non traditional schedules.  when I was a kid, I knew one family whose father worked third shift and I always thought it was odd how we had to be very quiet in the house during the day.  Now, looking at my friends, I see more and more of them working nights, weekends, holidays, whatever they need to do to make their lives work.  And, in so many of those cases, those same people are very motivated writers and authors.

A job change can be traumatic, we all know that.  But as writers, a new job means new experiences, and new characters to meet and write about.  A new schedule means new opportunities to find that "magic" time when the words flow easily.  For me, writing at work hasn't been that great in the last several months because the words haven't been there.  A change in jobs might be the jolt my creativity needs.

So take heart my friends.  There are 24 hours in a day and no matter how you arrange them I am confident I...and everyone else, will find the time to do exactly what we need to do.

Now...go buy a copy of Dream in Color and then go forth and WRITE!