Not long ago my son and grandson did some skiing around Crater Lake and sent me this shot of an utterly happy young man. Crater Lake is practically in our back yard and although I don't get there very often, it represents where I go to feed my muse. Bottom line, the wilderness is in my soul. When I'm there, which is often, everything quiets down for me. I become centered walking my two dogs through a nearby abandoned pear orchard and a bike ride around the lake where the family cabin is leaves me at peace for weeks.
The holidays are over, the new year begun. I wrote sporadically during those two weeks and know and trust where the wip is going. Not so much my grand plan (or lack thereof) for 2011. I've signed up for a couple of online promotion classes and am set to do a blog tour to go with three winter releases, but those things pretty much fell into my lap. I didn't sit down with a list and master goal and you know, it doesn't bother me.
Social networking began as an exciting publicity/promotion vehicle for many of us writers. Plug, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, Goodread, KindleKlatch, network, newsletter, create a killer website, etc, etc. Run around like a chicken with her head cut off (I've seen headless turkeys run and it ain't pretty and it doesn't last long)
I don't know about other writers but I've gone from excited to overwhelmed to acceptance that I'm never going to be able to do it all. I'm all right with that. There are limits to my energy, my time, my creativity and what there is of the last MUST go to the writing. Oh, I'll tread the social networking water, but I refuse to make myself crazy if/when I start to drown.
Maybe back in the dark ages when I started writing I might have had the energy and inclination to ride the roller-coaster but no longer. Several things are important to me: getting my backlist of umteen books out there, fulfilling my current contracts, and embracing three (at last count) new ideas. If the rest gets done in bits and pieces or not at all, so be it.
I'm happy in my skin even if there's too much of it. I'm never going to write the Great American Novel and that's all right. I count among my closest friends writers I've met online and that's a rare richness. Sometimes, often when I'm taking a shower or walking my dogs, a blast of creativity hits me between the eye and I'm HIGH on life and the love of writing.
And that's what its all about, not tooting my horn where and whenever I can but the thrill of embracing my creativity.
p.s. There's also taking time from the whole writing world to photograph my granddaughters as they feed the resident deer. For me, that's what life's about.
Vonna the philosophical
Filed as: The Writing Life
