Last Tuesday was my birthday. 42. I’m just getting over a
cold that struck me over a week ago. I’m happy that I was actually able to
taste the sparkling Rosé I bought to celebrate my big day. It wasn’t the ideal
way to celebrate my rotation around the sun, but it could have been worse. It
seems that there are so many more horrible incidences- hurricanes, earthquakes,
Trump tweets or speeches to the UN, North Korea. My little cold on my birthday
is no big thing.
My little plan from my last post to uncomplicate my life
ended up completely complicating my life. It seems that some people felt let
down that I wouldn’t be helping them and their dreams of writing the great
American novel. How I’m being selfish by not spending my time teaching them how
to write better. I had to blow those people off. I choose to listen to those
who called, texted and emailed their concerns for me. Their support of my
decision. Their understanding that I would still be there for them, I just wasn’t
taking anything new on. They understood this was not a selfish decision, but a
smarter decision to help build my own craft by not adding the burden of more to
my life. I am grateful for those people.
It also seems that this was just the right time to say no
more. Everything that I thought would be winding down for me has ended up
getting extended, or needing more attention than I had originally anticipated.
That’s okay, though. I think I secretly expected that I wouldn’t be able to
just move along in my little world immediately.
One great accomplishment this week has been the launch of
Panther City Review 2017. There was a pretty major hiccup pointed out to me at
the launch, where I couldn’t do anything about it but wait until I got home to
see what went wrong, but otherwise, it went off without a hitch. Once it was
all over and I got home, that major hiccup was found to not actually be my
fault, but that of the printer, so while it was bad, it wasn’t because I
screwed it up. And now it’s fixed! If you’d like to buy a copy of Panther City
Review 2017, check out the link on the Sleeping Panther Press page right here (I
even had time to put one of my own stories in it!).
Speaking of my own writing, well… Rome wasn’t built in a day
and my ability to just jump into the fray and get to writing isn’t going to be
immediate, either. I actually have two months of almost every weekend
obligations to my business before I can really bare down and focus on what I
need to do for myself. The great thing is, my mind is now open to the
possibilities, which is always, always a great start.