I don't feel like I have been accomplishing much lately. I haven't painted in a couple of months, and I struggle finishing a chapter in my novel or my desert book edits. I have itty bitty bits of time. I shouldn't complain, lots of people have it much worse, but here I am complaining. I would love 24 hours where I didn't have to talk to anyone or answer any questions. One whole day where I didn't have to clean up cat-puke, make dinner, or step around a maze of things randomly left on the floor.
I would also love some great news! I'll just leave that statement floating.
I have pretty much concluded that to make it as a writer is about as likely as winning a grand prize at a raffle where one million people have bought tickets. I'm not going to give up writing my stories and my books about endangered species, those are burning inside me and have to get out. I guess I must simply change my expectations.
Therefore, I am actively applying for work. Funny, we moved near a larger city and I am such a small fish here that I don't have any prospects. The competition is so great that it is almost as difficult to get hired here as it is to get published.
There is also the happiness factor. The dream of doing what I love for a living must be put to the side. I think that's the hardest part to swallow. But, swallow, I must - as Yoda would say.
1 comment:
Having seen your work so far, I know you will be driven to continue to write and paint even in the little gaps of your days.
I went through a phase like that years ago, I was so frustrated with the submission process (okay, it was the rejection pileup that did it) that I decided, "If it was meant to happen, it would have happened by now! I'm not wasting another minute writing!"
For a while it was a relief, but I'd get these little ideas tickling at me and I'd find myself slinking into the computer room. "Well, I'm not going back on my decision if I'm just jotting down an idea, not developing it. That's still not writing."
Eventually I gave in and went back to writing, because I had come to that peaceful place where my expectations were more realistic. Does that mean I stop honing my craft? Or give up on submitting? No and no! I may never see any of my book-length works in print, but I would be a different (lesser) person if I'd never made the attempt, or never written them.
It also helps to really laugh at those high-faluting fantasies about being "discovered," give yourself time to go through the grieving process---and then buckle down, because the real work has only just begun.
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