From Admirable to Magical

I spent the evening with one of my 77 cousins tonight...great food, great conversation and great shopping at Barnes and Noble. (Oh, and great service at the restaurant by the sweetest little gal with a great big smile. Isn't it amazing how a friendly, courteous, helpful server can make your food taste better and even make your day better?) This particular cousin shares with me an appreciation for being able to do what you love, to do what you're most passionate about. We talked and speculated about the people who get to make a living doing what they love, using their talent and their passion for that talent to put food on the table, yet don't appreciate what a rarity that is.

To have something you love, a talent, a niche, something you are passionate about and to use that talent to make a contribution to the world...no matter how small...that is admirable. To be able to make a living while using your talent, your passion, to make a contribution to the world...that is magical. Anyone who has something they love to do and has struggled to make a career out of it can appreciate how magical it would be to actually find success with it.

Whether your talent is artistic, athletic, social, technological, academic-the list is endless really-hopefully you are lucky and admirable enough to be using it to better the world in some way. If you're like me and you hold down a day-job in order to be able to afford your passion, then I hope the magic will come for you some day. And for those of you who already have that magic, don't forget to be thankful. (If you ever start to lose appreciation for that magic may I suggest you switch places with that sweet little waitress...she's a soul who is worthy of some magic.)

I love them more than writing

I can think of only one thing I love more than writing...my family. My husband is always first, the very top of the list, and right under him you'll find a very long list of aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and nieces and nephews. On my mom's side of the family alone the "immediate" family tops out at the number 77.

I know off the top of my head that there are 77 of them, because my niece and nephew and I counted them up Friday night as we laid together in my tent, laughing and giggling and fighting off the Sandman as we listened to the rain on the roof of the tent and crossed our fingers that we'd stay dry through the night. Returning today from the annual Anderson Family Campout with the memories of spending some wonderful quality time with a handful of those special 77, my side aches just a bit from all the laughter and my heart overflows with love and thankfulness.

Making a living writing...

Making a living writing...it just may be the dream of every person who considers him or herself a writer at heart...but there's a reason it's a dream. It's not exactly an easy thing to do. Nowadays the process of becoming "published" is more accessible than ever: print-on-demand has made the dream of seeing your words in print a reality for many. Unfortunately, seeing your words in print and making a living writing, well, that's a horse of a different color.

Self-publishing is a grueling business. There is so much to learn and so many mistakes to be made. If you're like me, and you're balancing the book business with the day job that pays the bills, then you may just find it exhausting. And the expenses! Ugh! Let's just say, it can be hard to keep the forward momentum going when one of your household chores now includes dusting stacks of cases of books yet to be sold into the hands of eager readers.

And yet, at the end of the day, with more money going out than coming in, and being far from able to make a living at what I love, I still live to write. That...not the success of my books or my publishing company...that is what makes me a writer.