Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

A couple of weeks ago, while we were in the grip of typical Oklahoma summer weather, I had an epiphany. If you don’t live here, I have to inform you that Summer is in fact gross. Temperatures can top a hundred and ten, while the humidity likes to hang out in the sauna range. Don’t get me wrong, I love the place, but Summer can be brutal, especially if you want to work outside. Since I’m a dyed in the wool horse junkie, I was of course coming home from a riding lesson when I had my amazing epiphany. I love my lesson barn, where I pay a very nice woman to torture me half to death, but I have to admit I can’t go anywhere after a lesson. My hair sticks up in sweaty helmet-induced spikes, my face is flushed, my shirt soaked in sweat, and even my breeches are often sweaty. After my instructor is done with me, my legs areshaking, and I smell to high heaven, but you can’t wipe the silly grin off my face.

So, in my post lesson grossness, I was stopped at a four-way, letting a large group of bicyclists whiz past my truck, my thoughts something like this, “What crazy people, don’t they know it’s a hundred and ten out there? It’s too hot to...”.

Yeah, it took a second, but the hypocrisy of my thoughts finally hit me. And that’s when the epiphany kicked in. Perspective matters more than anything.

You see, when I’m working a horse, not only do I not feel the heat, I don’t mind staying after to walk the horse until he’s cool again, then to slowly hose him off, walk him again until he’s dry, put up all my gear, and then finally take care of my overheated self. Why? Because I love this, and I see it as something that I GET to do, not something that I HAVE to do. No doubt, those bikers feel the same way about their chosen sport.

Naturally, this got me thinking about writing, now that it has become a job, and not just something I do because I love it.

The fact is, some days I lose my perspective. I procrastinate, I find myself hanging out on social media, or watching videos of rednecks attempting to lasso deer rather than just getting my work done. On those days, I’m looking at writing as something I have to do, not seeing it as the gift it really is.

On the days that I remember what a gift being able to pursue writing as a career really is, my word count is typically quite high, often twice what it is on other days. Not only do I spew out more words, I’m happier with the end result. So I’ve started a personal experiment, it might seem a little bizarre, but as I started my working life as a scientist, I can’t resist actually getting some hard data to back up my theory. Every day, instead of listing what I have to do, I have a list of what I get to work on. We’ll see how much long term change reminding myself that this is what I really want will produce.

If anyone else has tried a similar experiment, I’d love to hear from them.

Cheers,

Michelle