My friend and I were discussing a book she is currently reading. The book describes how we need to determine our true purpose or reach our dreams. It discusses how if you look at all of the “strings” that have been provided in your life, and are able to weave them together, you will discover your true purpose and achieve your goals. Interesting premise. I looked for the book on Amazon and discovered it was a religious book about our purpose through God. I am not sure that God (if there is one) wants me to be successful by writing porn stories…..but, it did get me thinking. How exactly did I get here?
I have always wanted to write a book. But, doesn’t everyone? I also wanted to be a dancer……but, I never took a dance class after 2nd Grade. I have spent my fair share of time on dance floors in bars, however. I had taken a lot of writing courses over the years….but, never pursued that either. I didn’t have a story. I read a lot and wished for inspiration, but it never came.
Fast forward through jobs and marriage and kids and being a stay at home mom. I never felt like I had a “goal”, I was just living every day as it arrived. And, as a stay at home mom, I was too tired to read, much less write. So, kids got older, husband moved on and I was starting over. The divorce was ugly and I was under pressure to get a job immediately. So, I did. It was a decent job and it was a job, but it did not pay well. So, I got another job. It paid better but, was not what I wanted to do. Which was okay. Not everyone loves their job. So, I looked for other jobs.
In the meantime, this 2nd job provided a laptop for me to use and take home if I wanted. I did that too. Spent a lot of time on Pinterest and FB, but that became boring quickly. I had also rekindled an old friendship online. While it was mostly innocent (really, no flirting, no sexting, no secret rendezvous) on both of our parts, it became a source of frustration for me. I had fallen in love with him the day we met. And, my feelings hadn’t really changed. He was married at the time. I have woven the pieces of our story into my books and I am not going to elaborate here, but I decided I needed to address the frustration I was having. I figured if I wrote our love story, I could get over it and move on. And, I had this handy laptop.
So, write I did. Whenever I had free time. Since I was sharing custody and was not seeing anyone, I had a LOT of free time. Plus, writing was cheap….I could afford it. My “love story” quickly turned into something else. I had so much fun writing about us, I got to thinking about everyone whom has “one that got away” and wouldn’t it be fun to explore the possibilities of that? I wrote and wrote and wrote. For about a year. Hundreds of pages. And, somewhere between the first word and now, the characters stopped resembling me and him and their activities changed….a LOT.
I had purchased some of these online stories myself. I thought I had a different voice to add. And I had all of these filled pages. I started to research publishers and self publishing sites. Soon, what had filled up my free time started to spillover into my not so “free” time. I would back-burner my plans. Then I started to loathe my job and ramped up my job hunting. That also takes a ton of time. When 2 jobs that I really wanted did not become mine, I started to think again. What did I really want? I wanted a job with some flexibility that paid enough to meet my bills and feed my kids. I wanted weekends off. I wanted to work ½ a day if I needed to. I wanted to work the hours I wanted to work. I am sure you can see where this is going. I always wanted to be a writer. I had written a lot of stuff. I wanted to be my own boss. I took the plans to publish off the back burner and pushed forward.
I am not sure where this is going to lead. And I haven’t quit my day job yet. But, I do know, when I look back to where I have been…and where I started….this adventure will have lead me to the next place I need to be in my life. For years I seemed to be just going along for the ride. For the first time in a long time, I am finally driving the bus. It feels good. It is fun and exciting and interesting. And, I am going to enjoy every single step. Because, I am successful already before I sell the first book. I will keep you posted.