Getting Cut: Bleeding Is Good For Writers & Pets
Getting Cut: Bleeding Is Good For Writers & Pets
Last week my writing routine (and income) took a major hit. Getting cut from my puppies.about.com site and getting cut or fired, in effect told you’re not wanted or needed, is pretty dang high on the suck-isity scale but BLEEDING IS GOOD FOR WRITERS — and by extension, bleeding is good for pets (figuratively speaking, of course!).
Anything truly beautiful and worthy of our passion has the power to cut. And anyone truly open to change and growth must be willing to sacrifice for their art–and yes, bleed.
It’s very easy to fall into a routine *cough* RUT *cough* and for creatives, that’s deadly. For me, time is the most precious commodity in both my work life and outside life. Wait, who am I kidding? My work life and “outside” life are joined at the hip and that’s not always such a good thing. There is always MORE to do. Those who are FB friends are familiar with my to-do lists, and self-promises of “once THIS is done, then THAT will happen” and…as long as the About-puppy-schtuff demanded more and more time, those reward-end-goals on the list wouldn’t have ever happened.
My husband commiserated with me about the lost opportunity and then surprised me by saying, “I’m glad it happened. You never would have quit. Now you can…(all those things on my list).” After about 10-seconds of surprised silence, I took a breath and simply said,
“You’re right.”
So what has happened this last week? Did I get through all the “wanna-do” wish list?” Not really. In fact, not much happened on the writing front other than a few more to-do lists (I now have a list of the next 6 books to write!) I messed around with SEO, wrote a blog post and newspaper column, read a lot of blogs, a couple of wonderful books, and finally–finally–admitted the need for a REBOOT.
Those who regularly read this blog know I love shiny objects, so it should be no surprise I love art glass. My home is filled with stained glass panels and lamp shades, and even the rose garden boasts half a dozen glass mosaic pieces.
I even created a character in my Lost And Found and Hide And Seek suspense thrillers who works in stained glass. You know that stained glass table in September Day’s kitchen? It’s in my kitchen, and yes, I made it. By the way, the latest stop on the Hide And Seek Blog Tour posted here today.
The garden and the mosaic work has been neglected. It also needed a reboot. So I spent the past several days cleaning, repairing and re-cementing a couple of bird baths and garden table and I count that as valuable writing time. I’ve found over the years that any creative endeavor feeds across into other aspects of my life. Playing music inspires acting endeavors, designing glass feeds the writing muse, playing new games with the fur-kids offers a rich abundance of song material. So over this past weekend, I wrote nothing–instead, I heeded the call of shiny-brilliant-glass, and ended up bloody but smiling for my efforts. When working with glass you must expect to be cut.
Magical-Dawg doesn’t hesitate to go all out to chase down, leap high, and snatch Frisbees from the air. He’ll turn eight years old this month, and I fear he’ll injure himself and so keep the toys low to the ground. Seren-Kitty at 17 weighs less than half as much as the kitten, and could be severely injured by him, but her newest joy is teasing and then reprimanding the young whippersnapper. Karma-Kitten has discovered the joys of (eeek!) stalking, chasing, leaping to catch WASPS, and again I try to get to ‘em first. Magic, Seren and Karma risk bleeding because the rewards outweigh the potential cut.
Hell, our cats and dogs take risks every day, just by loving clueless humans who may leave their hearts broken and bloody with disappointment — but oh, the risk is worth it when they can celebrate that Gotcha Day connection when dreams come true.
Yesterday I spent all afternoon putting together fun bios and questions for this weekend’s Thrillerfest when I’m a Panel Master on Saturday, and get to paw-tograph my dog viewpoint fiction next to best selling thriller authors. (stay tuned for video & pictures!). Meanwhile, all the getting cut and bleeding over the past week has done its job–sores are still a bit raw but healing commenced, and with it, oh-so-much new energy, inspiration and joy to come!
Maybe September Day needs a stained glass bird bath–or perhaps Macy and Shadow should deal with a new kitten in the next book SHOW AND TELL. Hmmnn.
Do you “bleed” for your passion? Have you had to do a career (or life) RE-BOOT? Do tell!
(All images Copr. Amy Shojai, CABC)
I love hearing from you, so please share comments and questions. Do you have an ASK AMY question you’d like answered? Do you have a new kitten and need answers? Stay up to date on all the latest just subscribe the blog, “like” me on Facebook, listen to the weekly radio show, check out weekly FREE PUPPY CARE newsletter, and sign up for Pet Peeves newsletter.
AMY SHOJAI'S Bling, Bitches & Blood - Pet-centric Writer-icity & Thrillers With BITE!
