I’m paraphrasing here, so don’t pelt me with rocks if I get this wrong, but I think it was Gustav Flaubert who said “Live you life as a bourgeouise so that you may write like a madman.” I’ve always liked that quote, because I’ve found it more or less to be true. My life has never been what one would describe as “sedate”, but the less outward stress I have, the more creative I tend to be. I think focusing all one’s creative energy on solving real life crises takes away from what you can put on the page for your imaginary friends.

Let me tell you. In the last couple of months, I haven’t had a lot to spare for the page. I’m glad this year is over. I’m not going to bitch about all the badness, that’s not what this blog is for. This is mostly just a year-end wrap up, so hopefully next time I check in, I can see how well things have progressed.

Like that optimism, do ya?

An illness in the family has forced me to move back home to be closer to my family. Which means I’m giving up my first apartment. My very first all on my own apartment. And I hate that. I really love that place. It was the first space I had that was truly all mine, that I could leave as pigpenny or clean as I wanted. I had all my junk spread out the way I wanted it, decorated it with all my pictures and whatknots, and made my own. I’m not looking forward to boxing all that crap up again and driving it across two states, but you do what you have to do. Family always comes first. I’m hoping it will be only a temporary arrangement, that by summer I’ll be back in my own digs again, but I don’t feel very confident about that.

On the upside, I finally got another job after two months of unemployment. The job was literally an out of the blue, right place right time thing, and the money was good, so I pounced. Now maybe I can get out from under that mountain of debt I’ve tunneled into. That will do a lot to get rid of that burden on my creative thinking. You get pretty damn creative when you’ve got creditors calling you at all hours of the day.

If moving back in with the family doesn’t drive me over the edge, if I can pay off my debts, if I can just hang in there, baby, by this summer I might be a published author. Regardless, I will always be a writer. I write, publishing be damned, because I love it and it keeps me sane. A friend once asked me what I would do if the book I was working on never got published. I told her that I would just put it in a shoebox and move on to another one. It’s all I can do.

I’ll leave on a positive note here by listing things I’m thankful for. It’s cliche, but sometimes I think its a good idea to take inventory.

Things I’m Thankful for:

  • good friends
  • my dog
  • a car that runs and has heat most of the time
  • two hands and ten fingers for typing
  • a home (and all the things that go with it, like food and warmth)
  • a job
  • a new beginning, again

That being said, I hope the New Year is a new wonderful beginning for everyone.