I can never remember whether the decade starts with the “0” year or the “1” year, but all the TV programs are saying it’s a new decade, which doesn’t mean that’s right, just that that seems to be what we’re going with. So happy new decade, too.
I won’t lie; it was a crazy decade for the RCM family. There was plenty of hardship. But there were plenty of blessings, too. In other words, I’m… pretty much like everyone else.
What’s interesting to see, in retrospect, is where the hardships led to new things, down side paths that seemed crazy and irrelevant at the time, yet brought me to points in my life I may never have reached by a straight line. Interesting to see how detours and delays on my journey equipped me with things I couldn’t have imagined I would need.
In a book, we plot that all out ahead of time. If our heroine veers off the main thrust of the story, it’s all part of the grand scheme. We’re giving her information or magic items, or allies that she’ll need to finish her quest. But as the characters in our own stories, we only see that in retrospect. If we see it at all.
Though I’ve always written stories, my path to publication was rather stop and start. Sometimes (like at the turning of the year), thinking about the time ‘wasted’ on abandoned manuscripts, and sidetracked artistic endeavors, I have to remind myself that all those disappointments and failures, false starts, wrong turns, dead ends and slammed doors that make me the writer–and the person–that I am today.
We are the total of our experiences. Actually, I’d posit that the synergy of experience and imagination makes us more than the mere sum of the events of our lives. This is especially true as writers, as we extrapolate from our own personal first hand knowledge, letting it spark ideas and inform our craft.
I hope that in the New Year, you let all those things propel you forward toward your goals, and that 2010 is healthy, happy, and successful for you all.
