I’ve been a terrible blogger. It’s over a month since my last post, and to be honest, there hasn’t been a lot to talk about. I have a recap for the RWA conference, which I keep adding to, and will eventually post that here. The thing is, the evil day job has consumed tons of my time during the day, and I’ve been working furiously on my revisions for my medieval capture/forced seduction book. And, I was just on vacation with the family. I did manage to get some serious editing time in, and I added about 3K words to the ms, but there’s still a little more to go. I am “thisclose” to wrapping that up.
Part of my problem is that I am not one of those lucky writers who has unconditional support from my DH. My kids think my writing career is awesome (though, to be fair, my 14 yo daughter is a bit embarrassed, despite her own sudden interest in writing), but DH just keeps insisting it’s nothing more than a very expensive hobby. For the last several weeks, I’ve had that consistently brought up, to the point where I am ready to commit violence. Even my in-laws (who I just spent a lovely week with) think he’s being a bit harsh.
It’s not easy to constantly have him tell me I shouldn’t be writing, I should be cleaning or doing laundry, doing something the kids need. Writing is not important enough to warrant the attention I give it. I’m not going anywhere, and until I make some serious money, it’s not worth the investment I put into it. Some of you may have noticed I’ve been very light on promo and advertising in the last few months. I’m trying to curb expenses as much as I can, just so he’ll STFU already! Especially since all my writing time lately comes after 10pm on the weeknights and early weekend mornings. It’s all I can do (other than the rare day when I have nothing going on at work, or am at home), and that time is sacred to me. I will ignore everything and everyone (including the internet) until I get my 2K in words, or 50 or so pages edited. So yeah, when he comes down and starts in with the “What are you doing now? Don’t you have something better to do?” crap, I tend to get downright nasty.
I suppose I should be a little more understanding – he’s not much of a reader, doesn’t get the allure of a great story, so I shouldn’t expect him to understand what it feels like to craft a great story. Writers are basically readers at heart, and without his being a reader, he’ll never get it. I should be used to this by now, we’ve been together 27 years, married for 19 of those years. I guess he always thought I’d get tired or bored by it, or give in after so many years of rejection (I almost did, I think he was really pissed when my friends pulled me off the ledge!). And now that I’m starting to achieve my dreams, he’s starting to realize this isn’t going away. Which is why I am working so hard to get my next books completed, polished and ready for submission. There is the medieval, and the sci-fi two-fer, and hopefully, all three will contracted this year sometime, so I can start on the next book in my Magiste series. I actually have two more planned for that world, with a ton of notes for more.
Then maybe, finally, I might get a little respect around here.
Gianna Simone 