Reading Time: 2 Mins
Another chapter closed and I will be forever grateful for the last fourteen months. We lived in the moment, celebrated life, I was present and I was able to reignite my creative passions that had been dormant for so long.
I finished writing a manuscript, my second, and have built a world that I am excited to explore across a new 5-book series, with 52K+ already written in the first installment. I got back to short story writing and the world of queries and searching for my first, still elusive, official publication. I rediscovered flash fiction in the form of tweet-sized stories, a daily habit that will be, happily, hard to break.
And now I am starting a new balancing act as I head back into the working world.
The unexpected gap year in my career has finished and I have spent the last week back to work, back in an office, meeting new colleagues, reconnecting with old ones and learning new systems in an industry I absolutely love.
My body is tired, my mind is full and yet I feel energized this Saturday morning from the week that has just passed. It must be the excitement of all the opportunity that lies ahead. Either that or the jet lag.
We had a fantastic honeymoon exploring Dublin and Munich with friends before heading off for a week-long Greek Isles cruise. We got home last Sunday night and had the holiday Monday to recover before I started my new role on Tuesday.
Pro Tip: Maybe don’t start a new job jet lagged next time?
Most nights this week I went straight from front door to dining table to bed. I can’t remember the last time I have been this exhausted.
But the days at work were full of energy, adrenaline and excitement. Everyone is happy to have me there and I’m ecstatic to be there.
And now here I am, wide awake at six a.m. on a Saturday at the tail end of the jetlag thinking about how I’ll balance my writing with my work moving forward. It would be so easy to talk myself into just focusing only on work for the next six months and get my feet under me, but I don’t want to lose the fun, the spark, the joy that writing has given me during my year off.
It is not an unfamiliar story, the writer working a day job, pounding the keyboard in early mornings or late at night and on weekends, keeping the passion alive, it’s just new again to me.
If you have any tips on achieving the balance yourself, I am all ears. For now, setting some modest goals for the coming weeks is my starting point and we’ll see how it goes from there.
The new chapter begins now and I’m eager to write it.