Come what may.

In the space of just a few days I launched a book, celebrated twelve years of marriage, got a job, and stared down my next birthday. 

I've been working for myself for two years now. I've followed my own whims and wants in that time. I've traveled and written in coffee shops, I've slept late and worked late. I've volunteered and swooped in for both problems and opportunities. It's been freeing, but it's time for me to go back to work. 

When I stop and think about it, it doesn't seem possible that I could have lost the habit of twenty years in the workforce in just two years of writing books and stories every day. But I believe I found the thing that I was meant to do, and that under normal circumstances I can do it well enough to make a living. 

I'll announce where I'm working as soon as papers are signed and it's all in the can. I'll feel like it's more real when I have an alarm in the morning and a commute in the evening. Until then, I'm still a full-time writer. 

As a full-time writer, I've been busy lately. I wrote about Flora in two different ways. I shared my method for writing a book in ten days. I spoke with Charlie Jane Anders about what goes into a book and what doesn't, and then wrote about that. 

I collected links to all the best stuff I read this month, though more and more "read" isn't the word. I keep finding audio stories, audio books, and poems that I want to share with you. Some of my favorite essayists are working in the medium of video. I wish we had another word for these practices that didn't sound ominous. "Media I consumed" sounds like a Coneheads sketch written for 2019. Nobody wants that. 

Nobody wants to punch a clock, either. That part I remember. But it's got to be done, if I want to pay for grad school for John, or keep living in the Bay, or finance some of my hare-brained schemes. I also remember that I wrote at almost the same pace when I was working full time. I wrote in the in-betweens, in the time when I had to wait on an answer, and on my commute. I wrote most of a novel on a palm-sized pad of paper I kept in my apron when I was working at Home Depot. It's not the same as the luxury I've enjoyed for the last two years, but it's also not stopping. 

There's a part of this that feels like failure. Going back to work means giving up the dream. But the dream keeps changing as I live it. The original goal is so small that it's like I'm looking down at a step-stool that I somehow used to get up on the roof of a three-story house. I wanted to publish a book. That was literally all; I thought to myself that I'd be happy on my deathbed knowing that I had done it once. Now I'm up here on the roof with three published novels, dozens of stories and essays, awards and nominations and I don't look down anymore.

I look up. I'm going to need something bigger to climb up on this time. I've got goals in mind that make this house look like that step-stool. So it's time to try out some new things and see how far up they go. 

I can't say nothing will change. But I can say I'm not stopping. 

Come what may, 

Meg