“You never know what’s coming for you.”–Benjamin Button
This year started out with an empty bank account and an anxious feeling of what I was going to do next. But soon two major things happened that would impact the rest of 2010. First, I landed not one but two publishing opportunities. Second, we discovered we were going to have twins.
So at the start of the year, armed with these two amazing blessings on each side like guns in holsters, I stared down the future and momentarily freaked out. I was supposed to write four novels (all completely different) and hand them in by September. And then yes, the twins would be arriving sometime.
So for nine months this year, I worked like a madman. I wanted to see if I could reallly do it. This was, after all, what I’d been hoping and dreaming for. A plate of projects in front of me, a growing family. I took it a day at a time. It was like Groundhog Day from Hell in some ways. Same day, different stories, typing away at them little by little.
When September arrived, I finished the last of the novels. I was emotionally spent. But of course, I didn’t have the first idea what the word exhaustion really truly meant.
Since then, I’ve been taking it an hour at a time. With twins, you have to do that.
So it’s December 31st and I’m glad to say that I’m leaving this year behind. It wasn’t a fun year. It was brutal, to be honest. But it was also beautiful and blessed.
Dreams can be funny things. You wait so long to wash up on their shore and then you’re too exhausted to really, truly enjoy them. Sometimes you don’t even recognize them. Sometimes you ask yourself Is this really what I wanted?
At the start of this year, there were many times when I asked myself if I could really get through it all. But I did. Somehow. Day by day. With God’s help.
Having said that, I realize how fortunate I am. God really did bless us this year. The writing is secondary to those lovely little ladies born September 3. The writing will always be second to my family.
In a year where I had to motivate myself day after day, in the end, I realized that this life of mine is really not about ME. Guess it’s taken me 39 years to realize that but I think I’m there. That’s okay. I’m a man in a passionate world of pink. And I can live with that.
What happens tomorrow and the day after that–I don’t know. I just know that I gave it my all this year, and I hope that 2011 will be a little more gentle and kind. I can’t see it being any more generous–no, 2010 will always top that. Always.
Happy new year to everybody who has been a part of this writing journey of mine.