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New Season, New Beginning

It’s not quite officially fall yet, but I’m starting to feel it in the air. Kids are going back to school. The lazy, hot days of summer are fading into busy, crisp days of autumn. The days of relaxing are gone and replaced by days of activity.

In other words, I got a new job.

I’m excited for the new experience. In a way this is new territory for me. I’m entering the world of government contracting (I had to get security clearance.) and I’m now working for a large company. I haven’t done that since 2000. My very first job out of undergrad was with a large company. Since then, I have only worked for small businesses. I also have a commute again. Back into the fray of traffic. I hope this is a good match. I think I made a good choice accepting this offer. No job is perfect, but I think this place is a good fit and I’ll be there for a while.

As for writing, my novel is still chugging along. I had hoped to have most of it done by September 1, but that didn’t happen. Truth is — It’s been a while since I’ve written anything over 5K. Once I passed that mark, I lost steam. My friend Jennifer Ryan suggested that I set a timer for 30 minutes and just work for that amount of time everyday. So far, that has worked, but the progress is slow. I get bored, insecure, or just plain lazy and don’t want to work. It’s strange, but when my time was limited, I was able to focus and get stuff done. Having lazy days where I don’t have much to do took the wind out of my sails.

I have an affirmation card on my bedroom wall that says, “Put words on the page everyday.” It’s a reminder to myself that I don’t need to have the perfect words, I just need to write something. I need to move forward. Maybe by October 1 I’ll have a very rough draft of the book. For now, I’m just putting words on the page. One foot in front of the other. I’ll get there… eventually.

Also there are some other great literary things that are happening and I’ll talk about those later, as I get further into the fall. I may have been lazy at times, but I still got some stuff done. I’m still submitting and going to literary events.

So it is a new season for me. A new start and, in a way, a new adventure into the next phase of my life. This summer was challenging and difficult at times. Change never really feels good as you’re going through it, but after the dust has settled and I started to move on, I have a better attitude. In some ways, my life needed an upheaval. A reminder that nothing is certain and the the winds of change will blow your way one day. After my surgery, I started practicing more gratitude and never have I been more grateful for getting all my medical issues taken care of before I lost my job. I really lucked out there. I’m also grateful for all the family and friends that supported me through this time. They made the time much more bearable.

Here I go. Onward.