After missing deadlines this past year due to family and fun, I decided that 2023 is going to be less stressful.
I'm going to have fun. There is already a family trip and a friend trip scheduled. But I'm giving myself more time to write and publish books in 2023. I'm not putting the deadlines back-to-back like I've done the last five years. I'm giving myself time to breathe and enjoy myself without flogging myself for not getting a book out when I'd scheduled it.
While I want to keep up with my readers who clamor for the next book, I have to be realistic in how my life is morphing with more family around me and those I want to see who live a day or more drive away. I think because I am slowly becoming the oldest generation in my family I want to see things I haven't and do things I haven't before I can no longer do them.
I've been blessed to have, so far, lived ten years longer than my mom. We lost my dad this past year but after he'd made many trips to Nebraska to visit his family and many trips to Alaska to fish. After retiring and before he turned 80, he had lived a life of doing what he wanted and seeing what he wanted. On his trips to Nebraska and Alaska he would take detours to see the sights he had read about.
That's what I want to start doing. Take trips to see things I've been reading about and want to see. The main drawback is getting my hubby away from the farm. Even though he says he's semi-retired, he still has to be here in the summer to make sure the irrigation pivots are working correctly and do the haying as well as his job of overseeing three irrigation pivots for a dairy. In the winter we have the animals to take care of. Three dogs, one can travel with us if we go by vehicle, two horses and a donkey, and 4 steers. They need to be cared for in the winter when we give them hay and have to keep their water from freezing. Then here come spring and Hubby needs to get the fields ready and the irrigation equipment ready to use. Then the watering and haying. Fall, that's when we can usually sneak away for a week or two. But I can't see all I want to see one or two weeks a year.
I'm waiting for him to completely retire so we can travel. He wants to go to Ellis Island in New York. His parents came in there when they migrated from The Netherlands. I want to go to a play in New York. Then I have authors I've met online over the year spread out all over the United States that I would like to meet in person.
Two years ago, when I went with my daughter back to Wisconsin to pick up pigs, I was able to meet Lauri Robinson in Minnesota. We had been online friends and book collaborators for nearly ten years and had never met in person. It was fun to see one another and visit. I have many other author online friends that I would like to pop in on.
This year will be my learning to ease back on the writing and enjoy life. I doubt I will ever write less than two books a year, but scaling it back to three this coming year has stopped my foot from kicking me in the backside and saying, sit in that chair and write! Instead, I can say, I'll sit down tomorrow and write. Today is for me.
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3 comments:
Great attitude, Paty. My husband and I worked in tourism for many years, watching elders with health problems making it to Alaska but not able to take that hike or fishing trip they'd really wanted to do for all those years. It's good to travel when you're healthy, and not put things off too long.
Lynn
Paty, wise words! I'm sure you'll manifest the life you've described.
Thanks, Lynn and Judith!
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