By scheduling dreams and goals, I finished homework ahead of time and am ready for week 3 in my new college experience. That sense of being on top of my work feels good. But now comes the crunch. A new contract arrived last night! I’m writing Fanned Embers in the Second Chance Brides Collection for Barbour Publishing. My story is a novella about the 1910 Big Blow Up on the border of Montana and Idaho. Congratulations to my sister-authors in this collection 🙂 You’ll hear lots more as this collection comes to life in August of 2017!
“It’s about scheduling.”
I knew it was coming when I signed up for college classes and I’m excited about that opportunity. It’s not due until Jan. 10, 2017 and the plot plus a good section is already written. So with the goal of homework, my daughter’s wedding next month, judging books for Writers Digest, writing a novella project with a small indie group due end of next month, and a few other side projects… I’m working to ensure my schedule is well thought out each day. In fact, I know of some other contract work heading my way. So why the addition of college when the career is going well? It fits into my future dreams. It fits the desire I’ve had for years. It fits me.Â
When people ask, “How do you fit it all in?”
My answer is, “I schedule it.” Lots of people do multiple job tasks and duties in their workday. But with a regular office job, someone else decides what those tasks are and when they’re due. Meetings, trainings, projects… duties vary. Lots of people work full time and go to school part time. Then they have hobbies, side projects, volunteerism, and house/yard improvements… It’s just life. When you think about how to fit your dreams and goals, the training or tasks to achieve them, into your day it isn’t about looking at the volume. It’s about creating a calendar and work flow you can live with. For me, it’s very busy. Yes. Very busy. But I love the life I have, the opportunities and the sense of interaction, provision, and connectedness of what I do. The difference between my job now and previous jobs I’ve had working for someone else is that I’m choosing what and when and how with more freedom than if I needed to meet job duty requirements for another company. But being my own boss still has regular job duties that have to be performed as in any other job.
My son recently asked, “Mom, do you ever get tired of writing?”
“Nope. I get tired, sure. But I love writing. I love my life.” And I’ll add here that since I couldn’t work toward my personal dreams and goals while I raised my children, there’s a burn in me that I have so much more to do to catch up to those dreams and goals. Dreams I didn’t dare speak out loud, elusive for so long I didn’t dare bring them to mind. One day those dreams emerged. My fingers took flight across a keyboard. The more I wrote, the more I needed to supplement my knowledge and talent. The more I learned, the more I soared in freedom to write and speak and teach.
Yes, I’m driven. But it’s not so much to succeed as it is to blossom into the me that God made me to be. To let those little DNA seeds God planted turn their faces into the sun while they grow tall and strong and vibrant. And sometimes those seed bloom into a moonflower, intoxicating my senses with the fragrance of story, characters, and settings I can’t leave abruptly. The stars twinkling through my office window and the moon adding romance to my journey, I write through the night until the story is spent…Â
