Home of the Bellingwood Series – Nammynools

My New Job

Unimportant, but necessary, cute cat photo
Unimportant, but necessary cute cat photo

I really haven’t held all that many jobs in my life … partly because I spent twenty+ years running a business. Yep, that consisted of a lot of ‘jobs,’ but … back to the stream of thought I already have going on here.

Mom and Dad didn’t encourage us to hold down jobs while we were in high school. They were more interested in us being part of the whole experience of high school – doing well in our classwork and participating in all sorts of activities. Consequently, we simply learned to do without a lot of the things we might have had if we’d worked. I did start teaching piano lessons and by the summer of my junior year I was working at the local Tastee-Freez. More piano lessons and grants and scholarships got me through college, then more piano lessons and a job as a desk clerk in a hotel in Iowa City got me to my first real job … Christian Ed and Music Director in a church in northwest Iowa. Whoa … life change. I was on my own, far from home and responsible to a lot of people.

I think Mom may have hated that I was so far away from home more than I did. Just about the time I was really settling in and loving my new friends, she called and asked if I would open a printing business with her in Omaha. For the next ::ahem, cough, cough:: many years of my life, that’s what I did.

Another turn at working in a church when the print shop closed and I discovered that independence in the workplace was something I do really well.

Writing gives that back to me.

Huh. That’s kind of understating the reality of what it is I do now. Writing demands that I be independent.

In the last few years, I’ve discovered how much of a hermit I am and how amazing it is that this new job actually forces me to hide away as often as possible. We used to laugh at my father. For a man who spent a lifetime as a pastor … always with people … he loved being alone. He would hide as often as possible, in his home office or at the cabin. It never occurred to me that I was just like him.

For my mind to explore things in order to write stories, I need a lot of quiet. A LOT of quiet. When I’m interrupted, it takes quite a long time for me to get back to creativity. It has become a choice. I’m either social or I’m creative. Right now my job requires me to be creative. Now, that doesn’t sound too horrible at all, does it!

Polly - Editing Page 1It’s crazy to think that this might be my real life now. Honestly, though, my future depends on it. If I don’t make this happen now, I have to get a job working for someone else and that is an atrocious thought … for both me and for them.

I wake up in the morning and fret over how I’m going to make this job work. Then, I hunker down and start working on something that continues to propel my life forward. Sometimes I write, sometimes I daydream about stories that should happen, sometimes I’m editing, sometimes I’m marketing. It’s a pretty cool job and I’m glad that I get to do something crazy … like write books!

All Roads Lead HomeFor just a couple more days, the first book in my Bellingwood series – All Roads Lead Home – is free for Kindle. Be sure to download it now. It’s a fun, easy to read book with great characters based on the hundreds of wonderful people I’ve known throughout my life.

There are three more books in the series and many more to come. Someone once commented on the fact that I was prolific in my writing … all I could think was … it’s my job. I have to be! I write, I edit, I publish, I market … and it really is the best job I’ve ever had.

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