© 2011 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved
I have issues with completion. The psychological roots of this problem are clear
to me, but thankfully, they don’t apply to every aspect of my life. I’ve
managed to finish college and a three-decade government career. I’ve tied
up any loose ends left dangling in almost every one of my relationships.
However, there are certain things that have been difficult for me to finish.
Getting a full-length book on the market is one of them, yet it has been a huge
goal for most of my life. The Crystal
Ball will be the first time I do it—thus, the publication of this humorous
mystery will represent a monumental personal milestone. (There’s an irony since it was long a mystery to me why I couldn’t pull it off.)
Like nearly everything
else in life, my paralysis in owning my destiny as an author came from an
emotional logjam from my personal Chironic wounding. The details belong in a
counselor’s office, where I have repeated them enough times; I’m sick of them.
To spare you both the inappropriate crossing of that boundary and the
melodramatic details, I’ll share just one of many “messages” I internalized—the
one I consider the most factual and the least emotionally sticky—behind why I have
sabotaged myself for years.
Quite literally, I was “held
back” from being born. My mother’s personal physician wasn’t on the premises,
and the hospital staff wanted her to hold off till he could get there.
What a revelation when I
found my birth mom and learned this bit of personal history. Of course, the
message my psyche took in was to hold myself back, to hold off giving birth to
myself. I cannot separate being a writer from who I am. Once you start writing
books, you’re really “out there,” as far from the figurative, protective womb
as I can imagine. My other core issues, sometimes still stumbling blocks, are
closely related by theme.
Given this psychological set-up, the “home stretch” is a dangerous place for me, the one where I am most likely to trip myself up or create something, consciously or “un,” that will do it for me. That’s because it’s the last time I can bail.
Here I sit with only one
chapter left to write and a week to go until my November 22 deadline. I am
watching myself like a hawk for any signs of self-sabotage. Entering the St.
Martin’s Press First Mystery contest was not only a swift kick in the seat of
the pants to encourage me to take the leap I’ve been postponing most of my life;
doing it in community, sharing the process, makes me responsible, not only to
myself, but to others to finish it.
Thanks for being there for
me! Your support goes deep. My five years combined of blogging on Hot Flashbacks, Cool
Insights and The Radical Virgo have helped me, post by post, to put myself
out there as a writer. This blog, in particular, has gotten me out of training
wheels and into writing three e-books. It has given me the courage and
self-confidence to make the final leap to full-fledged author. My work has been
so well-received here; the only person left to conquer is me and my residual
fears. Blogging has also been a real training ground for the task at hand. When
I’ve felt overwhelmed and questioned my ability to crank out my manuscript in
time, I told myself, It’s just like
writing 25 blog posts. You can do it in your sleep.
Next week, I plan to tell
you the book is in the mail. With that, I’ll explain my next steps. I’d like to
close this week’s update with an overview of what I’ve learned on my way to becoming
a writer. That “school” has intensified since I retired from my civil service job.
Wisdom alert! The following anecdote might also contain some great advice for
baby boomers getting ready to retire or who have done so recently.
When I left government
service after more than 31 years at the end of 2005, I couldn’t wait to start
my first writing projects. Wow! Now I could tackle all those book ideas. I was
as eager as a panting puppy.
The reality? It was like
climbing uphill in cement boots to get the smallest thing out of my computer
that I’d be willing to send out into the world. I struggled and struggled. It
didn’t feel like writer’s block, but I couldn’t pinpoint the malady
Finally, after nine months
of this quagmire, the same time it takes for human gestation, it finally dawned
on me. All tolled, I had worked for over 37 years straight without much more
than a few weeks’ vacation at a stretch. My body was trying to tell me that I
needed some serious down time before I headed out to my next career. (Got that,
Workgo?)
I retired in December
2005. I gave myself permission around Autumn Equinox 2006 to do nothing for as
long as my body and psyche needed it. After only six months by Spring 2007, I
was back! That’s when I discovered blogging and the fact that I couldn’t start
a new career as CEO—LOL!
Transition is a powerful
time of learning and experimentation. I’m not just in the home stretch of
writing this book; I’m in the home stretch of a much larger transition—being
reborn as a writer. I’m doing that Chironic, transmutation thing I talk about. I
no longer aspire to be a writer or think of myself as a writer on the side or
as an astrologer who writes. I now see myself differently. The culmination of
this transition is that, for the first time, I feel like a writer because I know I am a writer.
One of my favorite quotes
by Rumi is “Lovers don’t just meet one day. They are in each other all along.”
Writing is my love. We’ve
met, and we’re telling the world.
~~~
Photo Credit: © Alison Bowden - Fotolia.com
and 
Liz won a copy of 
by 
