My life has been making all kinds of interesting twists and turns over the past… well, forever. More specifically, however, my life has been making some very specific career twists and turns. As you might recall, I’m working out of the home (very) part-time now as a newspaper photographer. And people keep contacting me for freelancing gigs.
And then there’s that book thing.
Yes, Dawn outed me/us today because she’s insane. Maybe not insane. Maybe she’s less scared than me. I would have been perfectly content to be ten thousand kinds of vague in my request for interviews and the like over the next few months. Why? A few reasons come to mind. One of them is a huge fear of failure (which I’m learning goes away when you believe in yourself; WHO KNEW!). Another reason is because being vague and cryptic creates suspense! Right? Lastly, as I said to Dawn, now I actually have to work instead of sitting over here eating bon-bons as I do.
Oh wait. That last point might not be valid.
Short run down: we’re writing a book. About adoption. Not about our adoptions and the specifics of our open adoption relationships because, well, memoirs are kind of hard to sell right now because there’s one about every thing under the sun right now. (That said I’m reading a fabulously written memoir right now (because I do adore the genre) about death and infidelity and betrayal. It uses cuss words but ohsoappropriately. This particular memoir makes me glad that we’re not writing a memoir because there’s absolutely no way that I would want my memoir writing compared to hers because, really, it’s that good. Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
by Julie Metz. Pick it up but maybe not if your spouse has recently died. Just sayin’.) Anyway, back to our non-memoir. It was at one point in our talks asked if we would write a “how-to” regarding adoption which I initially balked at (and still do). That thought felt icky. What we’re working on right now is more of a critical (not meaning negative) look at open adoption. And such. Which is very descriptive, is it not? Totally.
We’ve been kicking around ideas for a couple of months now. When I was brought into the fold of this project, I was surprised that Delia knew who I was and, as such, I have a word of advice for anybody who aspires to write anything. Ever.
Blog. And blog well. Because you never know who is reading your blog.
All of this feels overwhelming and wonderful and scary and exciting and tedious and thrilling. I think it’s incredibly wonderful, dorky and technologically awesome that we’re utilizing Google Wave to keep track of ideas, interviews, topics, chapters and all that other stuff. I am always amazed at how truly lucky I am to be alive in this current “day” of “stuff.” Sure, it’s overwhelming. Sure, it creates challenges that didn’t exist before all of this “stuff” existed. But, man, sometimes things really work together to make aspects of my life/our lives easier. The argument, of course, then comes into play whether all of this “stuff” has made the publishing industry fall on its doopa but, well, as my grandma says about falling on your doopa: you can always get back up, sometimes you just have to find another way to do so.
I have no idea where this specific journey will take me. I do know that my house is messy, my laundry needs washed, my husband fought a late night fire and is exhausted and I can’t walk in heels. That’s about it right now. Those bits of knowledge aside, I’m loving the encouragement that has been sent to me via twitter today. I just read through everything after returning from an impromptu shopping trip with my boys and my mother-in-law. The retail therapy and the encouragement make me feel ready to conquer the world.
Kind of.