Just Because There are Angles to Work Doesn't Mean I Should Take the Bait

So, I'm keeping to my new mantra of 'follow the agent's advice' and I let the world know that there'd be no more 'Live Your Big Adventure' web site and no more weekly newsletter and the book was going in the deep freezer. Not going to pursue it.

Of course, lots of people suddenly wrote in to tell me how much the weekly email had meant to them. Even better, it was people I don't know. Then, some of the contributors from the site came up with great ideas on how to generate some possible income from the site. Suddenly, I was fraught with the temptation to try it.

However, some seed of recognition about my bad habits is growing inside my brain and I got a glimpse of what I was thinking from a new angle. Possible income isn't real income and right now I need real income. Plus, I had been asked the magic question. What type of writing makes your life better?

That was an earlier question so everyone was spared an email from me explaining this latest scheme as some kind of bait in the publishing waters to see if someone would bite. I kept it to myself, played with the shiny new idea for a minute or two and then some other, older memories came back to me.

I remembered being a successful stockbroker back in the 1980's for Merrill Lynch. Loved the people, loved the company, hated the job, each and every day of it. There was not one day that I walked into that job, sat down and thought, I could do this for the rest of my life. I was always thinking, please God, let me get through this day in one piece. However, I broke the office record for a first year broker and was leading the pack, winning all kinds of prizes. Everyone thought I had found my calling. I was the only one who knew how miserable I was and by my own bad judgment based on what others thought I should be doing. The day I finally quit so I could start to write felt like being let out of prison. None of that was the company's fault. It was all on me.

My greatest thought after that was it wasn't enough to be good at something or even to make a pile of money off something. You had to at least like it.

I never saw all of the various writing projects as their own form of temptation before, but it's true, they were and I chased them all eagerly. Just getting them seemed at the time like a justification, which it was now that I've learned a justification is just a bridge between the truth and a lie.

But I'm keeping my word this time and changing. You'll see.