#WritingWednesday – A new Beginning

(Editors Note – Apologies for the delay in posting this. I thought it had gone live already)

For the weeks of January 12-18 and January 19-25, 2015

The past two weeks have been a bit of a whilwind.  If I had to be completley honest with myself, I’d conceede that ‘whirlwind’ pretty much describes all of 2015 thus far.

I’ve been relatively quiet on the blog in general, and when I have been posting ive been quiet about some big news in my day job professional life.  Namely that I’m changing jobs.  I still work in accounting, I still work a 9-5 job and I’m still winning my bread from the day job as opposed to my writing work.  But it was time to move on, find bigger and greener pastures, and while I don’t regret my decisions to work where I called “the office” for the past 15 months, I am confident the choice to move into this new opportunity was, in fact, the right one.

I talk about new beginnings a lot on this blog.  So much so that if you saw the title of this post, and rolled your eyes at it, I woudn’t blame you.  At times it does feel cliche, even to me.  But in this case, it really does feel like a whole new beginning.

As a result of the job change, I’m forced to make a bit of a lifestyle change as well.  One of the perks of the new job is that I’ve been able to trade in a very stressful hour(ish) driving commute to and from my office for a relatively relaxing 40-60 minute train ride in and out of down town chicago every day.  And while that doesn’t mean much in terms of time spent moving to and fro, the ability to sit and relax while I am moved from point A to point B gives me some flexibility that I did not previously have.  It means that, among other things, I have amost two hours a day built into my schedule in which I can do nothing but write.  Which I am very happily taking advantage of.  In fact, as I write this very sentnace, my train is pulling into Union Station and it’s about time for me to get ready for my work day to start.

But beyond the freed up time to write, it’s also put me on a more rigid schedule, at least in the morning  Because I have a train to catch, I have to be far mor dilligent about getting up and getting moving than I once was.  I find this to be a good thing.  My evening commutes are a little more up in the air, but the trains run late into the evening and there are plenty of options.

So far so good, I think and as I write this, I have logged just under 4,500 words in four days on the iPad.

So what does this all mean?


Well, on the cusp it should mean that with anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours of built in commute time where I’m just sitting, my ability to re-form a daily writing habit should come that much easier.  This is not to say it’s going to be handed to me (and I don’t expect it to), but the whole “i’m tired and need to eat’ argument when I get home falls away.  If I can push through my daily word count on the commute, that potentially frees up evenings to continue my recording for Slipspace Harbinger.

On the topic of Harbinger, the 30 Chapters in 30 days project failed almost immediately.  Part of it goes back to that whole dicipline thing I mentioned earlier, and I’ll own that.  But the other piece of it pertains to the recent cold weather in Chicago.  In order to get the sound I need and want in the studio, I need to turn off my heating/air system in my home.  Inconvenient, yes.  But I an adapt.   However, when the weather highs are in the single digits and the wind chills drop to negative double digits…  intentionally allowing my home to cool only to speed heat it back up an hour or two later…is probably not the best of ideas.  So, I’ll be re-evaluating my plan.  I should be getting the last of my foice actors wrapped by the end of April, and so I’m going to re-align my goals accordingly.  But more on that in time.

So…. that’s where things are.  Momentum is building, day job transitions are happening and 2015 continues to look strong.

Catch you next week!