As we all know, life seldom happens as we plan it to. This applies to the writing life, too. I’ve been in denial about this fact. Writing has always been how I’ve sought and found control and escape from the rest of life’s vagaries and challenges. Every since I graduated from my library science program in May of 2022, I’ve tried to find the regular rhythm of writing that I had before I started school. But I started earning my degree back in August of 2020. My mother was still alive then. My relationship status was different then. I was not as good at handling my anxiety then and often wrote for hours to try regulate or escape my emotions. Covid was rampant. The world was a scary place and little did I know then that it would get much scarier. I am a different person than I was then. I didn’t think that so much would change in a relatively short amount of time but it did.
Since May, I have beaten myself up for a long time for not being able to pick up right where I left off with my projects and plans after two years of grad school. And then I felt bad for not being able to automatically find a new path forward. I had spent so much time wishing I could write my own stories instead of doing schoolwork so why couldn’t I just jump in? There isn’t just one answer to that question and that’s totally okay.
The point is that I am trying my hardest to build a post-grad writing life. This post is my declaration to myself (and to the internet) that just as I need to revise my stories to make them the best that they can be, so too can I revise my writing life as many times as I need to in order to become the writer I have always wanted to be. And part of my new writing life includes working on ideas that have surprised me while shelving older, more cherished projects. It includes doing my utmost to get my first book published and then hopefully a second, a third, a fourth, etc. It includes using a pen name for certain stories. It includes working in genres I never thought I would. And it includes keeping up this blog. Welcome to my new writing life. I’m sure it’ll be an interesting journey.
Elizabeth Hoyle 