If You’re Like Me

If you’re like me then you are a reader. 

You’re a reader of articles, of stories, of books and blogs. 

And…if  you’re like me…you don’t just read those articles, stories, books and blogs and cast them aside. No “out of sight out of mind” for you. 

If you’re like me you connect with those stories, articles and books, or, at least the ones you love, the ones that resonated with you, the ones that made you think, the ones you gave up moments of your life to pause and listen through the written word, to the voice of another. For a moment, if you’re like me, you enter the world by invitation of the author and you become one with that world.

If you’re like me you think about the characters.  No, you do more than think about them. With the help of the author you create them, breathe life into them, worry about them when you’re not reading them and you wonder about them as if the story could continue beyond the printed words the author wrote as if in some Inkspell-ish sort of way…if you’re like me. 

If you’re like me, you speculate about the people behind the pen.  Those creators of characters, those wielder of words, those visionaries who craft fantasy the way carpenters craft homes and artists their sculptures with such precision and intricate care.  You meditate after a fashion on these people who communicate so clearly and so deftly so invisibly. You think about them, about their lives, their loves, their sorrows, their existence, even if only for a fleeting moment and you wonder.  What kind of person would it take to write something like that?

If you’re like me you become, in a word, or maybe after many words attached to the invisible artists who’ve helped you create worlds, travel distances and experience lives you might never have known.  Or maybe, you do know the life of which they speak and you are all the more drawn to them because the existence they share is your existence as well.  You know it.  You feel it.  You live it.  And someone chose the words to express it that you yourself could not and you are grateful. 

If you’re like me, then in  a small way, you may even come to love those invisible craftsmen who work their art in black on white, creating entire galaxies where only blank, dead, white space existed before.

If you’re like me,  you wonder what happens when suddenly nothing is heard from them again.  The end of a series of books, the last of the articles, a blog abandoned.  You wonder what happened in the life of that person that ended their existence in print so suddenly…if you’re like me.

If you’re like me, in those respects, and you’ve been reading along here at The Wild Mind  maybe you’ve noticed that where there used to be an almost daily account of distraction, there has been a strange and unusual (at least it has to be for The Wild Mind because look how long her posts usually are!) silence of late. If you’re like me, you would wonder what happened in the real world to shut down the digital world of the person you’d grown somewhat attached to and were reading every so often. 

You would appreciate an explanation…if you are like me.  And you would hope that that explanation did not contain news of abandonment, because if you are like me abandonment in all its many forms never goes over well.  If you’re like me you even hate it when your favorite TV series gets cancelled.  You hated it when you finally finished the Harry Potter Series and you hated it when the Lord of the Rings movies were done. You knew it was the end of the story but somehow you wondered, was it also the end of the author?

You might wonder these things…if you’re like me.

Any Ideas?

I set aside specific time for writing each day.  Well, each day that I’m off from work I do.  Days that I work, I have to schedule differently.  When I’m not dashing to work to do my day job, I like to get up early (well, not that early) and write before the kids wake up.  Today, I slept in though. I don’t know why I slept in so late on this particular day.  I didn’t go to bed that late last night.  I mean, after the kids and I watched a movie, I crashed on the monster green couch in front of the wood stove.  I usually do this in the winter.  The couch is comfy and the wood stove needs to be refueled about midnight, then again at two in order to keep the place warm enough that I don’t have to run the gas heat incessantly.  In addition, the couch is just warm and ultra comfy cozy.  My bed is also warm and ultra comfy cozy but it is located at the far end of the house in the coldest room of the house so getting to it means I must brave some near Arctic temperatures just to enjoy the haven of the massive king size four poster that I call my bed.  (Sadly, so do my children whenever they feel moved, or frightened by monsters under their beds.  I keep telling them they should clean up!)  So, I dozed there on the plush couch till about two in the morning, stoked up the fire and went to bed just like I do every other night of the winter months, even when I have to wake up at o’dark thirty to get to work.  So why, today, would I sleep in till 9:30?  I don’t get it. 

Whether I get it or not, it is now after breakfast and pushing lunch time.  All the kids are up, dishes need to be washed (and I don’t have a dishwasher other than the four children), two of the girls are squabbling about how to arrange the room they share (Arrange it?  I’d just like them to clean it!) and the son keeps trying to sneak onto the Playstation to play his Madden ’08 game.  I have to work out in the garage and figure out what I’ll fix for dinner (I hate that part the most!).  My day is nearly over before it’s begun it seems. 

So much for my writing time today.

Two days later:

I saved that first bit as a draft hoping to return to it before the day ended so I could post.  I’m really working hard at writing daily and posting daily on both my blogs (I actually have three).  I’m doing this because I’ve found that the mere blog format keeps me accountable.  More people read when I write.  When I don’t write reading slacks off.  However, this is not my motivation for writing on my blog, it is merely a perk.  I write, because someday I hope to supplement my income with said writing.  Okay, that’s not really even true.  I write, because since I was in about 4th grade, I had this dream of being a published author.  I’ve actually been afraid to pursue that dream…rejection is huge in the writing industry and I wasn’t up to it.   I am more up to it now.  Just like anyone who hopes to be good at what they do, they have to practice and work on improving.  That’s what this blogging thing is to me: an opportunity to practice, hopefully improve and gain feedback from readers willing to give their input.

Scheduling time to write with a houseful of kids around and no spouse or significant other or nanny to assist is one of the most challenging tasks I’ve faced to date….okay, besides changing the light fixtures…which ended up being incredibly easy.  So, I’m thinking it is possible that this scheduling dilemma I face has a fairly simple solution which I’m currently unable to see…probably because I’m being a baby and don’t want to see it yet.  After all, being a baby is easier than simply growing up and taking control of your life.  In the end, it doesn’t feel good as an adult, to be baby, so eventually I must take control.  I believe that time  is now.

I cannot change the fact that my life is incredibly busy and full.  I actually like that.

I can’t change the fact that writing requires time, sometimes a great deal of time, for questionable results, and time is a precious commodity for me.

I know that if I don’t write daily I feel like I’ve missed out on part of my life somehow. 

I’m wondering what do other writers do to balance all the demands of their busy lives and still get the writing written?  Not everyone is a career writer.  Some have to share the writing job with the day job.  How on earth do they manage to do that, take care of kids, do laundry, eat, workout and fold clothes.  I don’t get it.

Any ideas?