Where I’ve Been, Discovering What We Want, and the Myriad Ways I Deceive Myself

Well, you’ve probably noticed this blog has fizzled to…zero posts per week.

Although this is a common thing that happens to blogs, in this case, the fizzling is actually intentional. Because….deception! Ah hem. That is, I realized I deceived myself once again.

You see, I’ve wanted to be a writer since 3rd grade, and I’ve written in different capacities since then. My main jam, though, is fiction. And poetry. My plan A has always been to be a writer. You know, when I grow up.

Well, in the years following 3rd grade, I became an adult and realized the importance of being able to pay your rent. Because I had yet to earn any money as a writer (despite only submitting work a handful of times), I determined I ought to find another career path. A Plan B career just to do “on the side” of writing until I could earn enough as a writer to support myself.

Enter: working as a field staff in wilderness therapy, where I found my other calling as a mental health therapist. This sent me back to school to finish a B.S in psychology and from there to grad school for a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

But something happened while I was in school… I stopped writing. I focused on school. I also had a baby. And in short, plan B became Plan A. I realized this in my last year of grad school, but decided to continue pursuing therapy as a career while resuming my writing.

While working as a therapist, I decided to start this blog, in hopes that it would help me earn enough money to stay at home with my daughter while she was young and thereby also buy me the time to write the next Great American Novel. I also came up with an idea for said novel and plotted much of it out.

Along the way, I earned $0 from the blog and had another baby girl. I spent all naptimes and after bedtimes working on the blog. This involved less writing than you might think, and more messing with wordpress, creating graphics, and using social media. One night a couple months ago, I spent over an hour creating a pinterest graphic. Not something I love doing.

The next day, my wise sister pointed out I really wasn’t working on my novel at all.

Foiled again!

Plan B (blogging) had become Plan A.

In case this is somehow not clear, writing a novel is supposed to be Plan A here, people! But with two littles ones at home and working part-time as a therapist, I really had no time to devote to my novel.

It is no coincidence that blogging is not intimidating for me, while writing fiction is very intimidating to me…precisely because writing fiction is my dream and blogging isn’t. Thus, the propensity to deceive myself.

Thus, the death of this blog.

And I am writing fiction again.

Amazing how we deceive ourselves about what we want, eh? May I stay the path and remain clear about what it is I want! And may you also be honest enough with yourself to discover and declare what it is you want.

And may you stay the path!

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So what does this mean for this blog? Well, I’m going to keep it online, because I like a lot of the articles I have written, and because I want to keep loosely in touch with you, Dear Reader. I might post here and there as time and inspiration allow, but you can expect exactly zero pinterest graphics.