Birthdays are a good time to start something new, right?

Yoga at the Wizard of Oz Museum. Kinda scary, mostly fun.

I always like to do something that scares me during my birthday month so this year I'm challenging myself to really and truly keep up a blog. My goal is to publish here at least once a week, maybe more. What, you say? Writing a blog isn't that scary. Uh, yeah, but commitment is and this year has pretty much already scared the shit out of me so I'm taking it a wee bit easier with my birthday month challenge this year.

What happened this year? Pull up a chair and a glass of your favorite beverage and I'll tell you my tale of horror. Due to Florida suddenly becoming a hugely popular place to live, prices have skyrocketed. The rent on my shop went way up so I had to move my business. Not once but twice and let me tell you, I had a lot of crapola after being in one location for ten years. It was heartbreaking, a lot of physical work, and I spent way too much time being pissed off at greedy, asshole landlords but in the end, I ended up at a great place with a fabulous roommate and I'm incredibly happy with work life now. 

Insurance has gone through the roof in Florida and many companies, including our homeowners' insurance, flat-out left our lovely state. Seems it was costing them money to pay for all these hurricane claims. Huh. Property taxes soared like a vulture swooping down for some good ol' Southern road kill. Sooooo, now I have higher bills to pay and, oh yeah, I had to get a new car which is lovely but comes with payments which is a major adjustment after not having a car payment for a long time. All this means lots of money going out. Yep, that's scary.

Writing, publishing, and marketing takes time and money and I don't have a lot of either right now. To put effort and $$$$ into a book that I'm fairly certain won't sell like crazy is disheartening. But. You never know when the Universe is going to surprise you with Random Shit and any of my books could actually sell like crazy, or at least sell a wee bit. I'm a tenacious bitch and even if I only put out one short book this year, that means I haven't given up. If, however, I do absolutely nothing, that's exactly what I'll get back. 

I'd like to say that all is well now and I'm moving along at breakneck speed but that's not true. There are still plenty of challenges in my life and with all the craziness going on these past few years I've shifted course several times. I wish I had more books planned but I don't. I wish I knew exactly what I want to write going forward and have adjusted my wacky schedule to write those awesome books but that's also not true. My writing goal this year is just to publish the second book in my Humorous Haiku series and that book is moving along nicely and should be done soon. Next year...we'll see.

Making a commitment to carve out more time for writing and for sharing more about myself IS scary but I'm moving forward, which is the only way to go. I'll end with a favorite quote. Thanks for reading.

"You fail only if you stop writing."  ~Ray Bradbury