The writer’s dilemma

“It is a mistake to think that moving fast is the same as actually going somewhere.” — Steve Goodier, inspirational author

We have an odd front yard. By a quirk of street layout, this part of our property is unusually long and skinny for our neighborhood, meaning we have the sheer frontage to collect not only the leaves of our own two oak trees, but those from several other trees across the street. This makes for plenty of raking.

Given the fact there is also plenty of on-street parking in our city, finding a place to pile up all these raked leaves until the vacuum truck comes is difficult. We’ve settled on two spots, one mountain-sized pile at the curb right in front of our house and another way, way, way down at the corner of our street.

Fortunately, I actually enjoy raking — the scritchy-scratch sound, the woodsy smell, the easy-to-quantify accomplishment — but there’s one part that’s always tricky. Because I have to focus my energy and attention on the leaves to be gathered, the gathering place is always at my back. Sometimes, I literally lose sight of the goal and go too far to one side or the other, wasting time and effort.

Any person whom God wired for creating and making would have to see the life lesson in this. Particularly when it comes to selling our product — be it books, free-lance news, photographs, art and on and on. Selling is sometimes so all encompassing that we can figuratively lose sight of the goal — sharing what we create.

I thought about this just this morning, lying in bed contemplating scenes from my most recent novel in the darkness. They are good scenes, funny scenes, scenes I’d nearly forgotten. I’ve been posting here, there and everywhere; linking to this and to that; commenting and responding, friending and following. There’s been so much marketing activity in 2018, it’s hard to remember the actual book writing that’s behind it, under it and, I truly hope, over it.

This is where I’d like to write a neat little paragraph that sums up life-work balance and creative pursuits in 2018 and beyond. But, I cannot. Is there a balance of create and sell? I haven’t found it yet, although I remain hopeful.

Have you? I’d love to hear what works for others. 🙂