Timing is Everything...and Sometimes Nothing
Generally, I'm against using my blog as a bitching session journal, but I'm breaking the rule today. Kind of. We all experience things in our lives, during certain periods, where we raise our fists in the air (figuratively, but sometimes literally) and curse. We wonder why certain things are happening to us, or why certain things aren't. We wonder, especially if we know certain things will happen, when they will come to pass.
My life is all about that recently. I need to emphasize first that I have too many blessings to count. I am extremely happy with my life. Of all things I have been blessed with, my family (husband and children) is the greatest, and I feel overcome with joy when I think about it. I am so incredibly lucky/blessed, and if my family was all I had, as long as I had them, I would be content. Yet, my blessings go so far beyond that. Great town, great house, great job, great friends, great gospel and ward, working vehicles, great teachers for my kids, great opportunities, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on.
But things, with me personally, feel to be at a sort of standstill. And every time I think maybe I will catch a break, I am proven wrong. Like a big roller-coaster of emotions, expectations, and realizations (yes, I am a believer in the oxford comma), everything is so up and down.
I've known, from the first moment a person other than myself read Hemlock Veils, that one day it would be published. Like a sixth sense. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but with all the rejection I've gotten from it during the past year, the inkling still gnaws. In fact, it's all the more stronger from it. It's something I know, something I feel in my gut. It's why I simply can NOT give up on it.
It's just hard when I put so much sweat and tears and heart into something, only to be told it's "not quite right." Or "not the right fit." More than a handful of times, I've gotten manuscript requests from agents who say it sounds fabulous, only to return to me later saying (always saying) the writing was beautiful and they loved the characters, but the story just wasn't for them.
Really, I appreciate the honesty. I don't want an agent who will be in it only halfway. I want one who will be just as passionate about it as me. One day, I feel like that will happen.
My problem is I've always lacked patience. I'm sort of indulgent, and tend to want things now. It's always been a weakness of mine. So, I write something I believe is fabulous and I want others to see its fabulousness, too...immediately. But what I have to keep reminding myself is that God's timing is everything. I truly believe that. I really do feel, from an intuition I can't really put into words--or revelation, for a lack of a better term--that my goal will be accomplished someday. God knows it and I know it.
But right now, for whatever reason I can't determine or see (damn the blindness sometimes!), the timing isn't right. I keep thinking, maybe it's because we need to get pregnant with our last child who we know will be here someday. Maybe that's what my focus needs to be on. I've even felt--again, by a personal thing I can only describe as revelation--that that's definitely what I'm meant to be doing right now: expand my family now, personal goals later.
So why can't we get pregnant?!
This just begins my lost train of thought and purpose lately. We've been trying. For a long time. We never had to try hard with our other children. So if I'm supposed to be bringing another child into this world, why is that not happening either? Surely, God can give me one of the two things I feel meant to be doing...right?
Well, wrong. Again, God's timing. And again, I wish I could see the big picture.
Maybe it's my bad health. I've had multiple health problems lately, which I have been seeing doctors for...and which we have had no success in diagnosing. One of the problems they think I may have may be responsible for my inability to get pregnant. So maybe that's what I need to be focusing on right now, as dismal as that seems.
What's really dismal though is feeling like the more you and doctors dig, the further from an answer you become. I'm so sick and tired (pun intended) of feeling so horrible all the time. I just want to have a diagnosis, at least so I can feel justified in feeling like crap. So I can feel like I'm not making it up.
But the more the doctors test and search, the more hopeless I feel. I know I'm not alone in this. I know many many people, with auto-immune disorders especially, go through this. Some take years before they find the answer, and some never do. I just may be one of those people. But it's extremely emotionally wracking (as well as physically) to think you may have figured out one piece to the puzzle, only to realize you were wrong. Talk yourself into something, talk yourself into accepting this reality about yourself, only to be shoved in the opposite direction and have to re-accept the other option. More than once in some cases.
So I suppose that's where my real frustration lies lately. My health. In that, my drive for publication has been put on the back burner. Not my desire, as it is still burning strongly inside me. Just my motivation and drive. So lately, though I still follow the publishing and agenting trends, and even enter a contest or two when they come about, I'm focusing all my writerly energy on writing and revising. I'm almost finished with the sequel to Hemlock Veils. I have my bumps and roadblocks with it, but don't we all? It's something I only get the chance to work on a couple times per week, unfortunately, due in part to busy schedules and in other part to my foggy brain. But I just have to accept that that's the way it's going to be for now.
So when I see announcements for writers conference locations and dates, and I pine ever so strongly to go, I need to realize that one day, it'll be my turn.
Anxious to know what the future holds. Hope, hopefully.
My life is all about that recently. I need to emphasize first that I have too many blessings to count. I am extremely happy with my life. Of all things I have been blessed with, my family (husband and children) is the greatest, and I feel overcome with joy when I think about it. I am so incredibly lucky/blessed, and if my family was all I had, as long as I had them, I would be content. Yet, my blessings go so far beyond that. Great town, great house, great job, great friends, great gospel and ward, working vehicles, great teachers for my kids, great opportunities, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on.
But things, with me personally, feel to be at a sort of standstill. And every time I think maybe I will catch a break, I am proven wrong. Like a big roller-coaster of emotions, expectations, and realizations (yes, I am a believer in the oxford comma), everything is so up and down.
I've known, from the first moment a person other than myself read Hemlock Veils, that one day it would be published. Like a sixth sense. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but with all the rejection I've gotten from it during the past year, the inkling still gnaws. In fact, it's all the more stronger from it. It's something I know, something I feel in my gut. It's why I simply can NOT give up on it.
It's just hard when I put so much sweat and tears and heart into something, only to be told it's "not quite right." Or "not the right fit." More than a handful of times, I've gotten manuscript requests from agents who say it sounds fabulous, only to return to me later saying (always saying) the writing was beautiful and they loved the characters, but the story just wasn't for them.
Really, I appreciate the honesty. I don't want an agent who will be in it only halfway. I want one who will be just as passionate about it as me. One day, I feel like that will happen.
My problem is I've always lacked patience. I'm sort of indulgent, and tend to want things now. It's always been a weakness of mine. So, I write something I believe is fabulous and I want others to see its fabulousness, too...immediately. But what I have to keep reminding myself is that God's timing is everything. I truly believe that. I really do feel, from an intuition I can't really put into words--or revelation, for a lack of a better term--that my goal will be accomplished someday. God knows it and I know it.
But right now, for whatever reason I can't determine or see (damn the blindness sometimes!), the timing isn't right. I keep thinking, maybe it's because we need to get pregnant with our last child who we know will be here someday. Maybe that's what my focus needs to be on. I've even felt--again, by a personal thing I can only describe as revelation--that that's definitely what I'm meant to be doing right now: expand my family now, personal goals later.
So why can't we get pregnant?!
This just begins my lost train of thought and purpose lately. We've been trying. For a long time. We never had to try hard with our other children. So if I'm supposed to be bringing another child into this world, why is that not happening either? Surely, God can give me one of the two things I feel meant to be doing...right?
Well, wrong. Again, God's timing. And again, I wish I could see the big picture.
Maybe it's my bad health. I've had multiple health problems lately, which I have been seeing doctors for...and which we have had no success in diagnosing. One of the problems they think I may have may be responsible for my inability to get pregnant. So maybe that's what I need to be focusing on right now, as dismal as that seems.
What's really dismal though is feeling like the more you and doctors dig, the further from an answer you become. I'm so sick and tired (pun intended) of feeling so horrible all the time. I just want to have a diagnosis, at least so I can feel justified in feeling like crap. So I can feel like I'm not making it up.
But the more the doctors test and search, the more hopeless I feel. I know I'm not alone in this. I know many many people, with auto-immune disorders especially, go through this. Some take years before they find the answer, and some never do. I just may be one of those people. But it's extremely emotionally wracking (as well as physically) to think you may have figured out one piece to the puzzle, only to realize you were wrong. Talk yourself into something, talk yourself into accepting this reality about yourself, only to be shoved in the opposite direction and have to re-accept the other option. More than once in some cases.
So I suppose that's where my real frustration lies lately. My health. In that, my drive for publication has been put on the back burner. Not my desire, as it is still burning strongly inside me. Just my motivation and drive. So lately, though I still follow the publishing and agenting trends, and even enter a contest or two when they come about, I'm focusing all my writerly energy on writing and revising. I'm almost finished with the sequel to Hemlock Veils. I have my bumps and roadblocks with it, but don't we all? It's something I only get the chance to work on a couple times per week, unfortunately, due in part to busy schedules and in other part to my foggy brain. But I just have to accept that that's the way it's going to be for now.
So when I see announcements for writers conference locations and dates, and I pine ever so strongly to go, I need to realize that one day, it'll be my turn.
Anxious to know what the future holds. Hope, hopefully.
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