Episode 8: When Life Gets In the Way

Transcript: About This Writing Thing, Episode 8

Hello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a weekly podcast about living the writing life. I'm your host Sayword B. Eller, writer for women, podcaster, and editor. That's right, folks, I've finally added services to my website.

It's been a while since my last episode but It wasn't my intention to be gone this long. Two weeks ago my husband and I went on vacation. I intended to be back the very next week, even had the transcript for episode 8 typed out. Then, as it happens, life decided to step in and make things…interesting.

Ask me if I've written anything in the last two weeks. Go ahead, ask me. The answer I give you is…No.

When hubby and I went on vacation I told him it was a relaxing vacation for him but a working one for me. Little tip here, if you have a spouse or significant other who likes to talk to you, don't rent a cabin without television if you hope to get any work done. The first day I was able to get about ten minutes in, the second day I managed to critique a story while he went for breakfast, but days three, four, and five I got nothing done.

What about Monday after your return, you may ask…The oldest called in need of a babysitter. What about Tuesday? Water main broke in town and my grandson was out of school. Yup, babysitter again. Then something else happened.

At around 3:30 that Tuesday afternoon my husband called and informed me that he may have just had a heart attack. After the "event" he drove himself to the hospital. He was admitted.

Thankfully, all blood tests came back negative for a heart attack and he was released the next day, but with no answers and two days to wait before a stress test I was unable to focus on anything beyond, Oh my god, what if I lose him?

A follow up appointment with the cardiologist on Monday informed that all is well with his heart. Thank goodness! Now we're just keeping an eye on him and taking things one day at a time.

My point for telling you all this? Sometimes life gets in the way of writing. As new or budding writers we hear and read interviews with writers who say you should write every day and they don't let anything get in the way of their writing, but the truth is, life gets in the way. Scary things happen, inconvenient things happen, even really great things happen to pull your focus and energies away from the page. Don't beat yourself up about it. I'm revising two books; one will be released next fall under my pen name Kimber Trace, and the other will begin submission rounds in January 2020. If that schedule gets pushed back due to life stressors throwing me off track, then so be it. I won't beat myself up because the words didn't get written. At least not today.

That's it for this week. For me, I'm using the rest of this week to get caught up and nurse this chest thing going on. I'll be fully back on the work train soon. For you, I wish you happy writing, but if life is getting in the way right now, I wish you well. Don't worry about the page, it'll be waiting when you get back.