Sunday, May 30, 2010

Things Don't Always Go As Planned....

Life teaches us over and over that things or days, in this case, never go as planned.  Earlier this year, I thought I would be taking one more trip to Washington DC to visit Katie before she moves, but again, things change.  

Being that this weekend is Memorial Day weekend...a three day weekend, I thought it would be somewhat relaxing, but maybe not.  Today, the family and I, excluding Jay, went to Detroit to a family friends "family gathering".  Our two family's have known each other for the past 12 or so years, so it only seemed right that we would be included in this shindig.  A good chunk of these people I had either never seen before or hadn't seen in years, so let's just say that I was feeling slightly awkward at first. 

As people say, some things happen for a reason and I am a strong believer in this.  A year ago, I finished a book that I had been working on for several years and began researching publishers to see which ones were legit and which ones weren't.  Today, one of the women that came out for this picnic had published two books with one of the publishing companies that I had heard about.  Unfortunately, it was one of the many that had burned so many writers, this woman being one of them.

I had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the publishing world and asked her what advice she would have for an unpublished aspiring writer.  Despite the fact that she didn't want to really continue writing, she said that she would not completely close the door to the idea and one day, she would consider republishing her two books through another company.  Can I just say that I was feeling slightly envious of her?

One thing that she said that really hit home was, "Why shouldn't we get paid to do something that we really enjoy?"  In this world, its all about what makes money, but what about what makes us happy?  If you're happy with what you do, won't the money follow?  I had to agree...we should be able to get paid to do what we enjoy, rather than be miserable and hope that one day we could earn a living doing something that we hate.

As I write this, I wonder how different my day could have been if I had stayed in Lansing today and hadn't met this woman.  I would not have known for sure if that particular publishing company screwed over writers looking to publish their masterpieces or that I knew someone who had actually published two books.  

Things don't always go as planned, but when they don't, I guarantee you that there is a pretty good reason why!

No comments:

Post a Comment