“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would rather receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” –Hebrews 11:8
One. More. Week.
After 23 years in the classroom, and 43 years in my career, I am closing up shop. I have one more week in the classroom to do whatever it is I am going to do, and then I am done. Finished. Complete.
Or so it would seem.
I still have gas in the tank, I keep telling people who ask me what I will do now. And no more excuses.
So when I change my occupation on Facebook, it won’t read “Retired” like it does on so many of the people I went to school with. It will read “Full Time Novelist.”
So what does that mean? It means that even though I have 23 books behind me–24 when my latest comes out in a few weeks–it’s time to get serious. It’s time to get marketing serious. I have a steady income, so I’m not a starving artist. But I really don’t have a career to distract me anymore.
Writing is now my career. My only career. And I have the added benefit of more than 40 years of training, along with millions of words written, a few awards beneath my belt, and an already established network. What can go wrong?
Lots. I’m savvy to know that the odds are still stacked against me. Marketing has never been my forte. I have to remind myself that the savvy writer is always a student, always learning, always growing. And even though the clock is ticking–don’t know how many years I’ll be able to write before arthritis, dementia, or some other senior plague takes away my ability to be creative–I will write as long as I can. Let’s see how many miles I can get out of this horse.
The Great Adventure 