Getting Overwhelmed

I am a writer. It is a tremendous passion for me being able to share the characters in my head and tell their stories to the world. Yesterday I touched on my desire to take the passion and turn it someday into a career if at all possible. I have a great distance still to go before I feel comfortable even saying that I am a professional but in an effort to begin making that journey I made a decision tonight that I hope is a good first step.

Last year I took on a huge event for the launch of my book Survivor and while it had a number of things I would change having learned so much, I believe that it was a success. I had been planning to hold an anniversary event once again this year in October. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and like last year that seems like the perfect time to do it again. Of course this year with it being so close and because I think the large scale of last year's attempt was a hindrance I was aiming for something smaller and more intimate.

With August coming to a close in the next couple of weeks and not having a date, time or location for the signing event though I was becoming very discouraged and on the way home from my day job today I had all but decided that it would be better to not hold it at all. I have been getting scheduled for forty hour weeks at the casino I deal at for the past month even though I am part time and that cuts in deeply to my writing time and, even more so to my planning time. I have managed to fit in editing and reading during breaks and before I go to bed. I have been getting my blogging and research time in while eating dinner and relaxing after work. I just haven't found time to go out looking for locations or sitting down to write my books.

Tonight I thought hard about the difficulty of making the party happen and was ready to say enough is enough but in my heart I also thought about how important the book was to write and how much I believe it deserves the exposure. It is going to be hard to find the time but that to me is a big part of being a professional. You have to decide something is a priority and when you do then it is important to focus your time on making it happen. Dedication is something I have been known to waiver on but that has been a sure sign that I am still an amateur. This is the beginning of me facing that feeling of getting overwhelmed and being able to say I am stronger. As scary as it is to make this declaration it is liberating as well and I am looking forward to making this event happen once more this October.