A New Beginning

I have decided that Friday's will become my day of working on social media.  It's a part of marketing, and I really stink when it come's to marketing.  A part of that is probably talking about where I have been, and where I am going.  So here it goes.

Some point in 2014 I completed and published Requiter.  My writing life had taken a direction that involved an upward trajectory. I had written over half of the third book, which meant sometime in 2015 or early 2016 it would be published and I would be on to the next.

Then work happened.  Okay, maybe it happened before Requiter was published.  It happened regardless.

With the first two books I worked forty to fifty hours a week at my bill-paying job. This left me with time to work on my passion.  Somewhere around 2014 (it's all a blur), I picked up more responsibilities and a crew of folks to manage, because of that corporate buzzword "downsizing". The department I worked most closely with went from five people down to two. I was no longer close to that department, I became one of those two.

For ten years or more, my short weeks were sixty hours, and I averaged closer to seventy hours a week.  The money was great, but the balance between work and home was shot.  There were times when it would have been more productive to just throw a cot into my office and nap when it was convenient.

You can imagine, no, you can see, my passion took a shot in the spine and laid paralyzed in the corner of the room.  When I was at home, I was too drained (mentally and physically) to do anything.  Lack of sleep really took a toll.

The summer of 2023 brought the beginning of the end.  An event woke me up and I let the company know I was done.  January of 2024 I made my last appearance at my place of employment and I haven't looked back since.

Like starting a gas-powered weed eater at the beginning of the season, it took several pulls and multiple false starts to get the passion on the move again.

And it feels great!

For several weeks, now, I have been in the habit of writing.  Each morning I climb out of bed, work out, walk/run five miles (this morning I did neither...), then lock myself away in my little room and work on my craft. 

I write, I edit, I read about both, I watch videos about it, and I've even looked into making some of my own videos.  At the very least, for five mornings a week, it is all about writing.

I just finished up a pencil edit of chapter 37.  I don't know what the timeline is, now that I don't have a day job, but I do know that this third book is well on its way to completion.

I am excited!