Change isn’t the culprit, you have to understand. Expected or not, change is difficult. But you get through it because you have to, and you try to move on. At least, that’s my MO.
The thing that tries to take over your life when you’re not watching closely are the side effects of change–nasty little buggers.The underlying currents that keep beating you back onto the same stagnant shore you’re trying to sail away from.
Change has its own rhythm, damn what you want to do next. Sometimes you’re just trapped in its wake until it’s good and done with you, and fighting the undertow will only exhaust you to the point of surrender.
The side effects from my successful surgery, for example. I was going to be back on my feet, hitting the ground running, ready to swing for the fences and smack that ball out of the park (Are we done with the cleches yet? you’re asking) by early February, so I could finish the second book in my paranormal series and move on to exciting new proposals for Harlequin.
Too bad, the changes to my system weren’t interested in me doing any of those things.And neither was my specialist, who kept talking about minor complications and waiting for another three months before starting drug therapy. Then another three months. Because, you see, my blood work wasn’t definitive and my symptoms were quite vague. Unless, of course, you took into account the surgery in January that he wasn’t interested in giving much diagnostic weight. Even though he’s the one who ordered it and told me of the possible complications that might result. EVEN THOUGH I couldn’t sleep or eat or function normally because everything was so out of whack everywhere but at the extreme edges of my lab results that he was WAITING TO GET WORSE BEFORE DOING ANYTHING.
Eh-hem. Not that I’m bitter…
Fast forward to April, and I had a looming deadline, a past-due book that refused to let me get close enough to my characters to finish, and an ongoing war with an endocrinologist that wasn’t improving any better than my declining, but still vague, health issues.
Enter my saviors–my family doctor and my literary agent, both of whom worked their magic on my endocrinologist and my publisher, respectively, and got me what I needed to see my way through the dark tunnel I was struggling in.
Take it from me, friends–choose your primary care physician and your agent wisely. One day, they just might save your life, too!
Of course there was also my family and friends and the above-mentioned story, which I now love just as strongly as I not-so-long-ago despised it. I leaned on all of them harder than a girl like me’s ever let myself depend on anyone or anything. And low and behold, they were all there for me. All ready to prop me up. All my saviors, too, in hundreds of everyday ways I’ll spend the rest of my life repaying. And many more Revising a Year posts trying to describe.
Because (to round out a long but somehow still lacking summary of why I’ve been gone from here for so many months), it was June/July before I started the medication I needed, and another three or four months beyond that before I can begin to say that my system is fully recovering.
And then came August. And my small publisher (of my paranormal/fantasies…you know, the one I killed myself to finish and revise and edit while I was so sick…) nearly went under from the financial strain of the failing economy and credit markets. More change. More side effects beyond my control. Which meant said book I now love was in jeopardy of never seeing the light of day.
Which is a whole new story I’ve begun to tell in my Publishing’s Isn’t For Sissies thread, and have to get back to, too.
But for now, suffice it to say that Synthroid is the nectar of the gods, and so is the thrill of telling your endocrinologist, I TOLD YOU FREAKING SO!!! And so is cyber hugging my agent and long-suffering editor and all my friends and family every chance I get.
So, ((((HUGS)))) to everyone.
I promise future Revising A Year posts will be forward-thinking, not backwards-looking. Hang in there. I either dumped it all into a few updates, or I’d be forever repeating myself to folks who wouldn’t understand why answering a few simple questions (again) was making me break out in hives and look for the nearest exit to escape through.
This way, I’ll be a much more well-adjusted, friendly girl next time we see each other ;o)
you go girl…I hear ya.
My fight with the learned drs. lasted 11 months and eltroxin was the nectar of choice. (synthroyd and I weren’t compatable)… I believe (facebook) Linda Howard has had a similar ongoing war that interrupted her career too.
Glad you’re back.
Boy, I hate to hear your publisher is having problems, but I fear that ebooks are going to kill a lot of things, especially since authors keep offering free ebooks on the net. In today’s paper there is a long article about a high school here in Houston that got rid of thousands of books from their school library and are replacing them with computers and ebooks. The librarian stated that they were just keeping up with the times. Me, I like real, honest-to-goodness print books.
Your illness has proven to be a real pain, I know; but it sounds like you found out who your real friends are and who loves you. That is a plus factor.
It’s more the economy than the ebooks themselves, Gladys. The publishing business was already changing, and the money woes of the entire world are excelerating the need for a quicker response to reader expections. In the long run, whatever electroic solution is standardized will offer publishers a more efficient, economical process of producing and distributing books. It will also, as we’re already seeing, give readers cheaper, faster reading options. IMHO, the cream of the writing community will still rise to the top. Everyone just needs to buckle up for a bumpy couple of years while this all sorts itself out.
My own daughter has told me that she wishes she had a Kindle. Maybe youngsters are just thoroughly into mechanical and electronic things. Who knows, for the young being seen with a print book may look nerdish. Everything changes. You are right about the economy and today’s news says the Democrats are trying to pass a $1.1 trillion spending bill to get in all the earmarks each of them wants before the Republicans gain the majority. The bill will be over 1900 pages deep and no congress person will have time to read it before they are asked to vote on it. Doesn’t that sound unbelievable? Think about what that will add to the national debt. It seems like the members of Congress are totally out of touch with the real world.