It’s been a rough few months.
We’ve recently lost a couple friends to cancer, and found out a couple more have it too. Other friends are fighting unknown maladies that have reduced their lives to misery.
My Mac died, and was in the shop for two agonizing weeks before it finally came home.
I broke my arm for the second time in October, and then Mark and I got a really bad cold in December.
Facebook temporarily kicked me off, scaring me half to death. A great job I really wanted didn’t even bother giving me an interview, and I was invited to a cool local author event and then kicked out the same day because they had “too many fantasy authors.” Mine was a sci-fi book.
And the hits just kept coming, day after day, week after week.
At last, after three solid months of seemingly never-ending ick, things finally seem to be calming down. I’m still not sleeping great, and my writing time has been all but nonexistent – I’m stuck in Writer’s Wait, while my subconscious sorts out what’s wrong with my current Work in Progress.
What has got me through this rough time?
It’s the people.
My husband Mark, first and foremost, who has been my rock (and I his), finding a way to survive each of the shocks and to hold on to something like sanity.
My author friends – there are too many to mention them all, so if I miss you, please do not be offended – but especially Kim, Angel, Marvin, Grete, Jim, Jaime, and Ro, who have all checked in on me and listened patiently while I recited the endless List of Awful Things.
My family – especially Dad, Mom, and my Aunt Lerri – who have all lent a metaphorical shoulder, and my Aunt Melanie, who did an unexpected and surprising nice thing for us.
My publisher, Steven, who pops in every now and then, just to ask if I’m okay.
And our non-writing friends, especially Carolyn, Allison, Becca, Nick and Kolby, Kathie and Eliane, Sharon, and Penny and Bev, all of whom have become a part of our Logical Family.
Again, if I missed anyone (and with my brain as scattered as it is these days, I am sure I did), I love you all too.
The writing life is hard enough by itself, and when regular life decides it wants to reach out its claws and bat you around like a cat toy, things can start to seem nearly impossible.
So surround yourselves with friends. People you can reach out to. People who will check in on you every now and then, just to make sure you’re still alive and remembering to eat. Friends and family who will make you laugh when you are sure you had no more laughter in you.
Writing may be all about the words, but being a writer (and a human being) is something else again.
It’s the people who will carry you through to another day so you can write again.