#WritersLife: Four Years Later

 

#writerslife, where I remember my former life.

It's been almost four years since I posted on this blog. In that time, I underwent cranial and spinal surgery, bought a tiny house, changed industries, and got married. Needless to say, none of those things involved writing. In fact, I turned away from writing in every sense.

I touched on a bad break-up I went though in 2016 that halted my ambition and that led to a slower climb in my writing endeavors in previous posts. However, I can't fully explain what coerced me to stop writing and change industries after spending four years earning my Bachelor's in Creative Writing and an additional three years working in the publishing and marketing scenes.

It started with wanting a break. A mental break from the self-imposed deadlines, an emotional break from wanting to live up to the best-selling author image I curated, and a physical break from the hours staring at a bright computer screen (yellow tinted glasses are one of the greatest inventions of our modern times). I took that break and then some, and stopped writing for two years, save for the occasional journaling that never lasted more than a couple weeks.

I felt frustration the first dozen times friends, families, and colleagues asked if I'd been writing. Why was it simple to understand someone no longer wanting to work in sales but difficult to understand why I didn't want to write? And then I realized: no one knew how to identify me without writing.

I had no identity without writing.

I suddenly had to find new things to define myself not only for others, but myself. Without manuscripts and book clubs and author events, what was I into? Since everything I enjoyed, mainly video games, church events, and playing with my dogs, couldn't equate to a paycheck, I thought I had nothing going for myself. I dove into warehousing because 1) I was good at it and 2) in 2017, I needed good insurance for my upcoming surgery and warehousing pays well in that department.

I had my parents, my college friends, and now ex-boyfriends push me to write again after my surgery in 2018, now that I had my own place when I bought my house in 2019, and definitely again when we went into lockdown in 2020. But I didn't know what to write about. I wasn't reading young adult anymore, and I definitely wasn't adult enough for fiction. I love my faith, but I am far too much of a sinner to write religiously.

While I pondered these thoughts, my newlywed husband proposed that I write again. I snapped at him, told him he wasn't the first to suggest it, the first to not understand, the first to think it was easy to jump back into even if I secretly thought my voice was gone forever. He said a dozen people could have suggested me to try it, but it was only meant to be the thirteenth person who made a difference.

Something about that moved me and it pissed me off. 

I was done with writing. I didn't know how anymore, or what was popular, or who was still agenting, or where the book blogs were jumping. But it stuck with me. 

A few weeks later, my dad opened his grilled cheese food truck. He asked me to do the social media, and I said yes. It gave me such a rush, and I had fun googling cheese memes and food truck events and blowing up my friends' pages with constant sharing of its posts. I actually enjoyed the scheduling. I enjoyed the self-inflicted deadlines. Within two weeks I was back in my old habit of scheduling posts a week or more in advance. 

Feeling encouraged, I applied to a writing job. They rejected me. I applied for another. They rejected me, too. And with that, I was back in the industry

I still don't see myself cranking out a novel or two a year like I did in my prime, but I know blogging will allow me to practice without feeling like I'm doing something wrong, and the social media posts will provide me with enough structure to creatively stretch my legs.

So here I am, four years after my last post, and this is my #writerslife.