The Shifting Vision of Success

So, the reason I got behind on blogging the last couple of weeks is because…I’ve started a new part time job.

Yes, she who was absolutely positive that writing full time would be her personal version of nirvana has changed her mind.

When I was prepublished, my biggest dream was to write full time. Then I got a three book contract and was able to do that. Except, it wasn’t really writing full time because I had kids in the house, and they tend to be the full time thing, and everything else is part time. (At least for me—for others it is most likely different—but that’s been my experience.)

So my big consolation with them going off to school was that at least I’d be able to write full time now, really and truly full time, not this part-time, full-time jazz.

But what I found was that it felt an awful lot like staring at my navel for hours on end. Writing four hours a day came easily, writing eight hours a day was a fight, and I ended up getting in my own way, forcing things that really shouldn’t have been forced. Pretty much the same principle as overworking piecrust dough. Roll it out once or twice and you have a perfect piecrust. Keep fiddling with it over and over and you end up with something that more closely resembles shoe leather.

So we’ll see how this goes. Right now, it feels perfect. It’s afternoons, which is my creative dead time, and it’s in my own small town, so only a three minute drive to work. Both lovely. Another thing I find I’m really enjoying is the daily sense of closure and accomplishment I get. In writing (and publishing) the goals are all so long term. And as soon as you reach one, finish the copy edits, say, another one pops up in its place; proof the galleys. So I find that I’m really hungry for this sense of daily accomplishment that the new day job is providing.

So that’s where I’ve been. Once I get my feet more firmly under me, I’ll be slightly more consistent here…