Friday, July 24, 2009

I overthink, therefore I might be

So I'm thinking..first mistake..what do I want to be when I grow up. Then I realize, I am grown up.

Oops.

I've got a degree in english, writing and so forth, milling around about a book, yadda yadda yadda. I'm working as a nurse's aid in a place that will pay for me to go through nursing school, but I don't know that I want to push pills on old people for a living and I don't have the stomach for hospital work. I live near Warren Wilson where there is a great low residency MFA program, but if I can't get a scholarship I doubt I could come up with the money to go.

I don't know what to do.

I know what I want to do. I want to write. But what I have to do is pay the bills. Somewhere there must be a balance. I also have to do the laundry and raise two kids and pay attention to my husband and pick the tomatoes out of the garden before they plop to the ground, ready and wasted.


I've written three novels. The first one is a lot like my first love, naive and romantic and not very well put together. The second has legs but I'm not sure it knows where it ran to. The third, now this one, I'm happy with. It means something. (sidebar--that's actually a line from the first chapter of said first novel...but now, it too means something.)

So, what will I do.... I'll let you know.

meanwhile: check out this site if you're looking for an agent.

www.agentquery.com

Stay tuned, and try not to over think.

Friday, July 10, 2009

all writers need a hideaway

I've just come back from a week at Wildacres Writers Workshop. check it out at wildacres.com
For those who already take the time to go to workshops or retreats, keep doing it. For those that haven't yet, google retreats and residency programs and workshops and the like. There are plenty that are affordable and it's a great time to get away from the world and write (among other things--those that go to Wildacres know what I mean)

Seriously though...take some time to focus and reconnect with what you're writing.