Balancing Act

I never needed much encouragement. My books sat on my hard drive, 2 dozen or more in various stages of development, for years. Under threat of fear and rejection I left them there, quietly growing on their own when I had time to play around with the lives secretly inside my head.

I still don't know what got into me. One night I did some research and found a publisher. I submitted my most finished and ready work and about had a heart attack. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to tell me thanks but this sucks! It didn't happen and now there's this book out there with my name and picture on it. I'm still in this stage of disbelief, but that was all the encouragement I needed.

I find myself wanting to dive headlong into my other books and finally finish and polish them, giving all these lives breath and air. But the universe has other ideas. When I'm finally ready to be who I know I am inside, an author, life has to intervene in a million little ways.

I used to have nothing but time on my hands, now I can't seem to get more than five minutes to myself. Even as I write this my kids have interrupted me five times with the quintessential he said she said arguments. Every day I think I have a few hours of quiet something comes up I have to go, and the kids come home and dinner has to be made, arguments dealt with, chores done, homework helped with, and then bedtime for them. By this point my brain is fried and if I get in the zone that allows my character's lives to continue I'll be up until 3am. Sometimes this is a worthy sacrifice when the writing is good. When it's crap I only suffer with no reward.

This crazy journey I'm on has really just begun and already I'm trying to carve out time to make it work. I find myself re-learning how to juggle while walking a tightrope. Of course being sick does not help my outlook. lol