LIFE GETS IN THE WAY

 

This is a popular saying these days, and I use it myself. But, when I pause for a minute a look closer at it, I have to ask. “Does life really get in the way, or is ‘the way’ life?” I think back on when I sold my first category romance, many, many moons ago. I ended up with a bad back injury after another driver rear ended my car. The specialist ordered me to bed for four months. I used the time to write a book, lying almost prone, with my keyboard on my lap, I typed out the story of Star Bright and sold it to Zebra’s Lucky In Love line.

Then life got in the way. Zebra folded the line, and my next romance book lay dormant. We moved to Manitoba for my husband’s work. Health issues once again reared their annoying head. Change upon change hit my life, digging a hole that could slowly fill up with depression – or become the receptacle for greater opportunity.

Barbara Thrasher approached me about co-writing Smart Women. Success followed instantly with six publishers vying for the manuscript, national media jumping to attention. Macmillan Canada sent us across Canada on a media tour, and we crossed Canada two more times doing Smart Women workshops for thousands of entrepreneurs.

In the following years we moved back to Saskatchewan. I built a successful business around non fiction writing, publishing articles in magazines and newspapers. I also started my business, MAS Productions, delivering online writing courses, and teaching adult writing classes at the local college. Though enabling many writers to meet their publishing goals gave me tremendous satisfaction, it served as life ‘getting in the way’ of my writing.

I went into 2013 determined this would be a productive year. I would return to my writing and choose romantic suspense so I could write for sheer pleasure. Again life tried to interfere, as mid January two herniated discs forced me to put aside all the physical activities I loved. Several other health issues decided to insert themselves into my life and see what chaos they could cause through the year. Yet, I wrote Climbing High, sold it to The Wild Rose Press in NY, and also self published I Am That I Am, a book of my photographs and philosophy. Before January 1 of 2014 my second romantic suspense will be complete. Now, I can say, “If life doesn’t get in the way,” and give myself a way out. Instead I have learned, committing to those last 20,000 words is my life. It will happen.