How to Overcome Your Dread of GAWD - Reb MacRath

Don't even try to tell me you don't know the meaning of GAWD. If you write,you do know--and if you don't, you're not right in the head. So let's man and woman up and admit the existence of GAWD:

Goddamned Awful Writing Decisions

We've decisions to make, of course, every day about writing as both art and business: matters of style and plotting, promotional tactics and price points, fine tuning our queries, etc. There's no end to it--and we don't mind, not really. It's all part of being a writer, we know. In fact, we take morbid pleasure sometimes in comparing our stresses and blues with our pals. My best guess is that 98% of these decisions aren't life-threatening. Any query can always be further fine-tuned. Any botching of a plot can always be corrected. But that's not our issue. Our issue is:

GAWD

And, oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about. These are the life-threatening forks in the road where no mercy is shown if you make the wrong choice. I speak from experience: having chosen the right agent, left her for a better...then left him for the wrong agent who promised me a quick sale. That sort of thing. It may take you years to recover, if you recover at all, from a bungled wrestling match with

GAWD

Now, the funniest unfunny thing about GAWD is that there's no predicting when and where it will strike next. Consider my current dilemma:

Two years ago, I made a good bold decision, moving cross-country from Charlotte to Seattle. Since arriving, I've accomplished my main immediate goal: find a job that left me ample time during the work week to write. Even after doing that, I continued to tweak my mode of commute and my space for writing, arriving at perfection: a quiet, lovely place where I can write for 3 hours before work and one more hour after. And the only cost to me is getting up at 4 a.m. Better yet, next year I'll graduate from temp-to-hire to staff and get cool benefits.

But not so fast...

GAWD HAS ARRIVED!!!

Yes, just when everything seems to be coming together--an eleventh ebook coming out in the spring, plans for print editions, and upcoming interviews on the air and in print--I face another sharp fork in the road:

The company I work for will relocate next fall, from Seattle's happening Capitol Hill to the dead, dreary boondocks of Renton. An office park in the middle of nowhere. There, my commute time would rise from 30 minutes each way to about 90 minutes. 3 hours daily to and from an office park served by a food truck.

If I stay with them to keep my benefits, and a secure position, I'll become a weekend writer at a time when I should be putting on more speed in both writing and promotion.

If I choose to leave, I may find another temp position with no benefits or security. And jobs, past a certain age, don't get any easier to find.

I still weigh the pros and cons of each. But, embracing the inevitable, I've pretty much made my decision: I'll redo my resume and after New Year's start applying left and right for jobs that allow me to honor my commitment: to devote solid time to my writing.

Perhaps GAWD loves us in its way and is simply trying to test us.