Shall I write a book today?

Yesterday I published my second novel on Kindle.  I've been writing novels for fun for many, many years, but never thought anyone else would read them.  Publishing a novel is an event, a landmark, that I always held as a far-off, probably unattainable dream.  Now I know, from my own experience, that it's another part of my process, my journey through life.  Exciting, yes.  But not an end-goal.  Not a final break.  Today, there's another book to finish.

Which makes me think: I keep expecting events and getting processes.  You would think by now I would know.

Take this whole retirement thing.  Even though I kind of slid in the back door, taking 2 months of medical leave that just morphed into retirement, I still thought it would be an event, a clear demarcation, a line in the sand.  Instead, it's just like everything else, mushy and hard to define.

Yes, April 1 was the official date.  As far as paperwork is concerned, there's the event.  But as I experience this new phase of life, there are many more markers on the side of the path than large, instructional signs.  And why should I have expected it to be any different?

When I was in my twenties, I visited an elderly relative, Aunt Jennie, who had long since moved to California from Iowa.  I had never met her; she was my great-grandmother's sister.  I was named after Aunt Jennie, my middle name being Jeanette.  I remember very vividly that day, after showing us her orange tree in the yard, and playing some music for us, she perched on the edge of a wingback chair and said "I'm 85 years old!" then shook her head and added wonderingly, "How did that happen?" 

Process.  Life from the inside feels seamless and actually timeless.  I didn't understand yet in my twenties and thirties.  I thought as the body ages, everything else does, too.  But now I'm 60, not old, not young, and I'm still me on the inside.  I look back and remember incidents or events, but the experience of life is like a long ribbon that continues to unroll.

So here I am at a beginning and this beginning is like other beginnings ---- exciting, thought-provoking, mysterious, a little scary.  I wake up every morning and I don't go to work.  I have more choice about how I spend my time than I ever have before.  For all my adult life, I've hoarded time, guarded it and doled it out with the feeling that it was the most precious, scarce commodity I had.  And maybe it was.

Now I have time to write, to think, to read, to dream.  Chores and errands are not as onerous because I still have time for the things I love.  I treasure my time alone and I delight in my time with Jill.  I even have time to play with the dogs.

I used to dread getting older.  All I could see was the encroaching darkness, the end in sight.  But now that I'm arriving, I find I have more than I ever imagined.  I've heard more birds, taken more walks, read more books, and lost myself in creativity more than I allowed myself in the past.  


And I still write novels for fun.

 

Frosting on the cake

I just opened my email and found that I've been paid my first royalty check, which is actually a direct deposit.  I'm in almost as much wonder and shock as I was when I first saw my book published on Kindle.

Today has been largely about tidying up loose ends: filling out forms, checking in with the Queen of Paperwork at school (who set me on the right track!) and generally taking care of business.  I don't like doing things like that, so I tend to procrastinate.  Today I wouldn't let myself get on the computer until I had taken care of everything else.  When I did ---- BINGO!  I'm a paid, published author!

Last November 30, up against the NaNoWriMo midnight deadline, I fell when I came out of school.  I was carrying a basket of my children's NaNo books and going home to write the last 3,000 or so words of my own.  When I fell, I hurt my right hand, especially my thumb.  Since I couldn't find an open urgent care and I really wanted to finish the 50,000 word novel for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth before midnight, I simply gritted my teeth, slapped on the ice pack, took ibuprofen and set to work.  I reached my goal and uploaded it before midnight to collect my third NaNoWriMo completion.  The next morning I went to the doctor and found out that my thumb was fractured and my shoulder was hurt as well.  I spent the next six weeks in a splint and had 6 weeks of PT after that.

And the point is?

When I look back, I can see that fall as being a pivotal event, though I didn't know it at the time.  It triggered a slide into feeling more frustrated, unable to do all my normal activities, worried about aging because it was not the first bad fall I've had, getting behind in work and using up all my sick leave on appointments.  Ultimately, it led me into the deep depression which finally resulted in retirment from my teaching job this month.  It wasn't possible to connect those dots during the time it unfolded. 

It is a truism that good can come from bad.  That fall I took set off a cascade of events that brought me to doing what I've always wanted to do ---- to write.  It was never a serious possibility for me before.  Once I started to slow down, listen to my inner self, operate more from could and less from should, and open my heart and mind to possibility, it no longer seemed like a pipe dream to be a writer, a novelist.  The New Women has readers, even people I don't know!  The next one is nearly ready to go up on Kindle.  I'm determined to put them in print form, too.  I see my stories go out into the world and I don't know where they'll land, but I'm so happy to launch them.

Getting a royalty payment is another affirmation that I am taking a chance on my dream, and it's working out.  Today is the only day I have, that any of us has.  Today I write and publish novels.  And wonder of wonders, I even get a little money in the bargain.  Mmmmmmm, love that frosting.