When Life Gets in the Way

Today is my day to blog, and if I hadn’t been sent notice of it, I would never have known about it. That’s because these days life is a rollercoaster ride. And I’m not talking about thrills and excitement. I’m talking about health issues, family problems, a day job that has become more demanding than usual, trying to sell a home in today’s lousy real estate market. You know, all that stuff we call life. Through it all I’m trying to write.

It reminds me of events from a few years ago. In the course of one year, my dad had a stroke (he has since passed away), my best friend passed away, my dog died, followed by my favorite aunt. I spiraled into a well of grief that I couldn’t seem to climb out of. I thought, I know, I’ll throw myself into my writing to take my mind off things. But everything I wrote was very dark and, quite honestly, not very good. I just couldn’t submit that crap. So I made the conscious decision to step back from writing, for a week, a month, a year, however long it took for the juices to flow again. I informed my agent who understood and told me to take as much time as I needed. So I did.

But maybe I took too much time, because after a while I began to grow restless and unhappier. Something was missing from my life. Yeah, my friend, my dog and my aunt…but it was more than that. I struggled to define it. Then, one day, as I was sitting at the computer doing my day job,  I looked up above my monitor and saw my book covers, all framed and colorful, adorning the wall. There they were, my books, my words, my stories. A few even had the titles I had given them. And it hit me like a Mack truck. That’s what was missing. In turning away from writing, I had turned away from myself.

I write. It’s not the only thing I do, but it’s a big part of who I am. The thing that I couldn’t define is the very thing that helps define me.

I have this scenario that I play out in my mind. Sometime in the far future when print books are (God forbid) a thing of the past, someplace in America, some young woman is up in the attic of her great-great-grandmother’s home and she comes upon a dusty old cardboard box that the mice have chewed up. Inside the box she finds one of my books. The cover is ragged and the pages are yellowed and musty. What’s this? A romance novel? Hmmm, never heard of this author. She takes it downstairs and begins to read. When she reaches the end, she smiles and thinks, Hey, that was pretty good.

I write. For myself, and for the future, to tell the world that I was here, and this is what I have left.

So, here I am now, going through all this crap that life throws at you, and it would be easy to put the writing aside when I have so much else on my mind. But not this time. This time I’m pushing myself to keep writing.

What do you do when life gets in the way? How do you writers out there maintain your creativity? How do you non-writers keep balanced and productive?