When You Know

When you know what matters.

When you know what’s true.

When you listen to that little voice inside yourself and the little voice is so damn tired of telling you its so damn tired…

The books are all good.  But this many?  This much?  For what?

Yes, to pay the bills, and yes, because I like to create but what ever happened to photography, flower arranging, baking, entertaining, scrapbooking, gardening?  What happened to poetry?  What happened to dreaming?

Feeling?

Being?

Jesus, how did wanting to be a writer consume the soul?

Once upon a time I wrote and hoped to be published.  I wrote and wrote and imagined how amazing it’d be to have my stories in print.  I wrote through both my boys pregnancies, wrote during ART with Jake and in-vitro with Ty.  Wrote and wrote and wrote despite the rejections and the dead ends and the editors who didn’t like or want my queries, never mind my stories.

But now I am published.  I’ve written 30 books since January 2000 for two different publishers.  I’ve written novellas, online serials, category romance novels and modern lit novels.  The books are sold all over the world, are in print format and as eBooks.  One book is being made into a Lifetime movie for Christmas 2008.  Odd Mom Out and Mrs. Perfect has just been optioned.  I should be on top of the world, right?

Right?

But my kids.  I miss them.  And writing takes me away from them.  It makes me distant, makes me distracted, makes me feel busy, hectic, impatient.

I hate how writing takes over not just my head, but my life.  I can’t cook dinner when I’m writing a book because I have to obsess about the storyline.  I can’t drive carpool and talk to the kids because my characters are talking to me.  I can’t even sit around on the couch and just be in the moment because I live in a multitude of different worlds–the one my kids are in, the one my publisher is in, and the one where I create, the one that is messy and passionate and fierce and hopeless.

I can’t stop being a writer but I have to try to contain the madness of it.

And I’ve already started.  I’m not writing a book right now.  I asked my publisher if I could buy the book that was due in December back and they said they’d give me a year to write it.   I’m not going to start on the book that’s due in May for awhile.  One month, two, maybe longer.  I might even have to push the May book back.

I love to create.  I resent worrying so much about the market value of what I create.  Will this book sell?  Will it do well?  Will I disappoint my publisher?  Where will the numbers be?

My readers, now I don’t worry about them as much, because I know they’re along for the Jane Porter ride.  If they’re buying me–and repeat buying–they’re here for whatever I can give them and they just want a good read.  But my publishers, they can publish whoever they want, and whatever they want and I hate hate hate feeling as if what I’ve created isn’t good enough.  Or up to snuff.

So I’m changing it all, mixing it up.  I’m going to be a mom more, a mom first, a mom last.  I’m going to enjoy being a woman and the life I have.  I’m going to scrapbook and cook and sit with my kids at night and not look at my watch and wonder when they’ll go to bed so I can get back to my computer.  Nope.  None of that for now.  None of that for a long while.

I need to write.  But before I do that, I have to take care of me.  And to take care of me I have to have more time with those that I love.  I need more hugs and more smiles and more kisses goodnight.  I need so much.

And you know, when I look into my boys’ faces, I know they need so much, too.

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