Shit Happens

After a writers’ meeting and a family commitment, I was looking forward to getting home and knocking off a few items from my list of writing things to do. I owed my new cover designer (I parted ways with the first one, but that’s another story) some information. I also needed to address some feedback I’d received earlier in the week on a short story I’m going to give my e-mail followers for free in another couple of weeks. That was just for starters, I also had other business items to take care of.

Well, I arrived home to find that one or both of my dogs had diarrhea and couldn’t wait for me to get home to go potty. I’ll leave it at that. While dealing with this situation, I turned on the tv because I’d heard we may have bad weather, and yep, it was coming. So, immediate situation taken care of, I crank on my laptop and started bringing up the files and sites I needed to do my writing tasks. Before I could get anything even started, I realize just how fast the storms were coming my way and decided I’d better just shut down and get ready to head to the shelter. Lap top had to be ready to go. Even if I didn’t make it, I was heaving the laptop down (shelter door was already open, just in case it got to that). It’s backed up every way imaginable, but hey, I still wasn’t taking any chances of losing all that writing. Sure enough, just as I slipped the laptop into its bag the sirens started blaring and off we went. Me and two dogs almost as big as I am (with active “situations”) climbed down into a shelter about the size of a shoebox.

A tornado did hit not far from me, but we were spared and eventually crawled out of our hole. I tried to get some work done, but by then it was late and I was tired (and did I mention I had a monster of a head cold?). So, around midnight I gave up and went to bed thinking I’d get a good night’s sleep and get an early start the next morning. Enter stage right—the “situation.” There was no good night’s sleep to be had. I still made it out of bed relatively early and typed this while shoving French toast into my mouth and bringing up the files and websites that never ended up getting touched the day before.

My point in all this is that shit happens (sometimes literally). Keeping up with a writing life (or any passion) on top of a “day job” and other obligations can be tough on the good days. Give yourself permission to have a bump or two without letting it get you down. You will reach your goals, whatever they may be, as long as you don’t allow setbacks to cause you to give up.

#YouCanDoIt!

Traci