I finally finished Heart on Fire.
You would think I would follow up that statement with a series of exclamation points and sparkly gifs. But the reality is, I’m too tired.
It literally took me two and a half years. That’s an entire year and a half longer than my other projects have taken at average. During that time, I have constantly asked myself WHY, WHY, WHY??
I’ll tell you why.
Because LIFE happened. I changed day jobs. Did like four shows. Baked pies. Drank buckets of coffee with undisclosed amounts of sugar. Reflected. Made friends. Crafted. Took down my website. Twice. Discovered Netflix and caught up on loads of awesome TV (Dexter and True Blood anyone? Yes PLEASE!) Loved deeply. And in the in between while life was happening, something else happened, and it was amazing. I think I became a better writer.
All this past year I’ve been telling myself I might as well just quit. I only write when I can find time – quiet time – when I’m not stressed about work, when I’m not chatting with friends, when the three busy men in my life are engaged FAR AWAY from my desk and the bird isn’t screaming for attention. (Which, if you have three men and a conure in your life, you know is NEVER.) I write when I can. And I was beating myself up because it wasn’t good enough. I’m supposed to MAKE time to write. I’m supposed to prioritize it and put it ahead of everything else if I want to make it. Everyone who reads writing industry blogs knows you have to write every day to be successful in the business. That not writing regularly shows that you lack focus or drive or something. And aside from that, there’s no point in blogging if you don’t do that regularly to – you know – to drive traffic and build up your name recognition and make sure other people are seeing that you are up and coming and you have prioritized writing. And that regardless of whether you blog regularly or not, blogging is totally OUT and you’d better have facebook and twitter links on your webpage or you’ve lost your audience.
So many road blocks to success you end up feeling like a hamster in a wheel if you listen.
It made my head hurt. And my heart too. I love writing, have since I was a girl, but until I’m lucky enough to get paid a decent salary for it, it’s on hobby status. Just sticking with it was a powerful thing. First, I proved to myself that I could still write a book. Even with a day job – I can write a book! (And that is important because I DO need my day job to eat and stuff.) But second and more importantly, when I reread the book, it was so full of LIFE – because life was happening when I wrote it. I wasn’t sitting at my desk every day alone. I had a year and a half of EXTRA time to study people and situations, to explore feelings deeply from the outside in.
It was painful, but wow, what a difference.
