Writing patiently...

I used to get so worried when I wasn't writing every day. I had books in my head and ideas scribbled all over the place, but I was making no concentrated effort to organize these thoughts. After writing the third book in the Rona Shively series, Keeping the Faith, I realized that it was the waiting and hanging back that helped make the book into something that I am very proud to have written. If I had rushed through it, I never would have developed the story the way I needed to and I certainly wouldn't have reached novel-length without pulling all of my hair out.

They say that slow and steady wins the race. I have to agree with that. I've never been a patient person and once I started writing, I learned quickly that if I am not patient, I will not accomplish what I want to accomplish. If I rush through writing a story, it won't be any good. If I rush through doing updates to my web pages, I'll forget something or make a big mistake somewhere along the way. If I rush through my interactions with others, I'll miss some valuable piece of information or advice that I might need later on. So, writing and the business of writing has been teaching me patience, slowly, but surely.

What this means to me is that I see things happening much more clearly. When I do accomplish a goal, it is because I have taken all of the necessary steps to do so. I haven't taken any shortcuts. And it seems like the more I back off of things and let them happen as they are supposed to, the more I accomplish. I'm very happy with the way things have been going and I know that even though it is taking me a while to get back into my writing groove, the day will come when I can sit at my keyboard and finish that fourth book in my mystery series. The day will come when I have the finished Women's Self-Esteem book in my hands. I just need to make sure that I am letting things happen the way they should and not rushing to be finished.

For me, the last three years have been amazing in terms of my writing career. Although I'm not a bestseller...yet, I have met so many wonderful people and learned so much about myself and how my world works. My writing has improved over time and I find that I am giving myself more time to recharge in between projects than I did when I started on this journey. That is so unlike me. I'm still anxious to see what else I will learn, but the difference is that now I'm willing to take the time and let that knowledge make its way to me instead of hunting it down and clubbing it over the head.

How do you pace yourself and your writing? What lessons have you learned about writing patiently?

Until next time...


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Slowing Down

I think the hardest thing for me to do is to slow myself down and enjoy life. Over the past few months, I've been trying to back off from taking on too many projects and now that I've phased some things out, I'm going a little nuts. I get to a point where I just need to have something going on. While most people seem to enjoy the sounds of silence, it makes me feel as though I should be in a rubber room somewhere.

The point of my slowing down was to allow me to enjoy the time I have with my little girl before she has to go to school. I have a couple of years, but I wanted to make the most of the time. When I had my little girl, I was a very different person. I wanted to get to the top of that career ladder and teeter there on the brink of insanity for the next thirty years. Now, I find it hard to even prop the ladder against a wall. It's funny how our priorities change once we become parents. I know I never would have dreamed that I would leave a prestigious position with a well-known organization to stay at home and be a mom. But for me, the mommy gene and the corporate career gene simply aren't able to coexist.

So, I sit here every morning making my rounds on the internet. Before she wakes up, I check e-mail, update websites, update blogs, look for interesting stuff, check the obituaries to make sure I haven't passed on, and then I think about all of the things I used to get done before 9 a.m. when I had a "real job." I can't believe I ever put myself through that. Now, when my daughter wakes up, I'm here and she doesn't feel pressured by my hurrying to get her to a babysitter. It has made a significant change in her. One that is worth at least giving up a relatively large salary. She's happy, she's having fun and I think she feels more secure.

I'm approaching my thirty-fifth birthday and it has become clear to me over the last few years that life is much more than how much you can bring home on your paycheck. If you can't get something more from the work you are doing than simply cash rewards, then it probably isn't even worth doing. I feel more fulfilled at this point in my life than I ever did before. Although it scares me to slow down, I am comforted by the knowledge that it has made a very positive impact on my daughter. She sees that she is more important to me than anything else and that it is possible to choose a path that fits what is in your heart.

Until next time...