Hurricanes and Change

Thursday Thoughts: Hurricanes and Change

If you haven’t realized yet, I am a writer.  For meager evidence, check out the excerpts to your right. During the day I work in the financial industry, a place I have worked for most of my career.  I have also been a teacher and owned a gourmet shop. I am married and have two almost grown children. Most of this while living in New Jersey. Hey watch it, no Jersey jokes.  What does any of this have to do with hurricanes?

Hurricanes are forces of nature and are highly unpredictable.  Here on the East coast of the United States we are watching the progress of Hurricane Irene. This after much of the Northeast felt the effects of the strongest earthquake in 67 years. I know southern California readers, it would be a yawner for you, but what would you do if three feet of snow fell on LA? The path a hurricane takes can mean all the difference between a disaster, a hard rain of a shower. When you are in the path of a hurricane, you need to prepare and be ready to adapt.  Windows need to be boarded up; evacuation may be necessary. If evacuation is advised, go! Not following great advice from experts under any circumstances is an invitation to disaster.

There are lessons to be learned from the forces of nature.  Life is about change, sometimes it is gentle, like a soft spring rain and sometimes it is a hurricane. Either way, it is about preparation and adaptation.

My change is everywhere. If you’ve read my last two posts, my daughter is moving to New York City, a place I lived when I was the same age.  This is gentle change, by and large, as long as we ignore the moments of twenty-something angst.

I work in the banking industry. I won’t say for whom because. while I want blogger followers, I am not the complaint department.  Banking has undergone drastic change in the last few years and continues to change.

I am also a writer. It is no understatement to say that the publishing and bookselling industry is in flux.  Change is happening so fast that it is hard to discern clear trends and directions.  I know that there are many people who are certain of the future and are more than happy to tell you their position ---sometimes endlessly. I am not as certain.  I suspect, and I am ready to admit that I could be wrong, that the final industry model will be a hybrid.  Maybe it is the biology major with a fascination of evolutionary biology and anthropology speaking. Nature abhors vacuums and extremes. 

But what does one do in a period of change and uncertainty---prepare, adapt and persist.  My Irish grandmother always said “You do what you have to do.”  Read, talk to others, share ideas, find a support network (for writers I recommend the folks at #pubwrite on twitter or the PubWrite group page on facebook) but most of all plan a course of action and do not be afraid to alter your course if facts and circumstances change. Do not be caught by surprise whether it is a gentle spring rain or a hurricane. Take charge of change and take charge of your future.

Balancing Writing and Life: My Take

I have been reading quite a few blogs of late on balancing your life as a writer with a full-time job and a family.  There have been many good suggestions out there.  It is ironic that this has been on so many minds. It seemed like messages meant just for me.  I don’t usually get personal on my blog so while I want to share some of the lessons I’ve picked up along the way, it still feels awkward.

In case you noticed I have not blogged in over a week.  This is part of my balancing act, at the moment. 

One of the things I have learned over the years is that, as a woman, you can have it all…just not at the same time.   Life is about choices, large and small.  I did not really start to write until my children were older. How many woman or man can relate to that?  That was not so much a conscious decision not to write but a decision to focus on my young family and a full-time job.  Would it have been better if I had started ten or fifteen years earlier?  Perhaps. But I shall never know and I do not live my life looking back.

I am well north of forty. Although, I tell people I am thirty-five in my head, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Who says fiction is just on paper (or e-reader screen). So as my children have aged, so has my father.  My mother passed ten years ago.  My father suffers from emphysema, the consequence of sixty years of smoking.  This past week he had an episode that required hospitalization. As the only child available, my husband and I have to jump in.  He’s fine but it has added running to stores, hospitals, checking on his place, bringing in his mail to the day.  You know the drill.  And so I have not blogged, work on the new novel, Ogham Court, is slow, and I have not been hanging out as much with my tweeps at #pubwrite.

But that’s okay. This is a marathon, not a sprint.  When I was younger I would have beat myself up; pushed to keep to my normal routine and self-imposed deadlines.  Now I cut myself the necessary slack.  I cannot stop writing.  It’s my drug of choice.  But I am more patient with myself and life.  Sometimes shit happens and you have to deal with it.  Then you get back on that horse and ride off into the sunset where the vampires wait. They don’t age…just like me.

It’s all about balance in the long-run, but some weeks the scales are tipped.  Next week, next month they will right themselves.  Sometimes it is not about balance but juggling.  If you have stuff going on that keeps you from your passion, be patient with yourself and  take care of the important stuff.  But most of all, stick with it.