I'm putting writing aside. 

I’m not saying that I’m giving up on my ambition.  I'd say that postponing, or putting it on the back burner, may be a better way to express it. 

I was about 30 when I decided I really wanted to be a writer.  It’s been 15 years.  There’s a reason I’m not successful yet.  There are many reasons, and I think I know most of them. 

I like writing.  I particularly like having written.  It is something I do for fun, though it isn’t always fun, as any writer will tell you.  I do it for enlightenment  self-awareness and the like, and I would like to make my living at it, if only so that I could do it all the time.  

I also like music.  It IS fun, and also fulfilling.  Unlike writing, it is a “hobby”, recently rediscovered, about which I do not delude myself regarding income potential, but that I rarely procrastinate. 

Why choose?  Time.  If I am to do anything well, I need to make priorities, and I have chosen to focus more on the drums for some specific reasons.

1)      Is the 15 years I’ve been “aspiring to be a writer.” 

2)      I don’t procrastinate drumming.

3)      Drumming is exercise.  It allows me to do something other than sit at a desk in front of a computer, a compliment to my day job. instead of something that feels too much the same.  I've recently discovered that the stiff neck and shoulders that I have accepted as a certain state - previously unresponsive to most forms of stretching - is helped by movement.  Who knew?

4)      People seem genuinely interested in hearing me play, more so than in reading my work, for some reason (people I know in RL, in any case, xanga company excepted – I know you guys love my stories – that I haven’t written any of lately).

5)      If I take money out of the equation, and choose that which is merely fun, drumming is more fun.

6)      I truly believe I can be good.  I played at my Tuesday jam session this week and recorded it.  The crowd noise is overwhelming, but I can hear enough to like it.  I think that my playing inspired the soloist, who played really well.   I stumbled, but kept my place and kept going, and when I wasn't making mistakes, there were some great moments - glimpses of what could be.  But to get there, I have to give up something if I am to practice enough, otherwise I have to come home and disappear until the kids go to sleep, after which I can't practice. (Previously, I was taking time to write in the morning, but now I can go to work early, come home early, and have time to practice and appreciate the other joys of my life as well). 

I’m not saying that I’m never going to write.  If there's time I may read (also fun).  I may update my author site, market works I’ve already completed or if an idea comes to me for a piece of flash fiction that I can write quickly, write it.  I will probably keep blogging somewhat, and will keep a journal, especially when I’m depressed and need to write myself out of it (my cure), but for now, essentially, me and my writing "career" will be “on break.” 

If I strike it rich, or get a job in which I don’t sit at a computer all day, or find there is a sudden interest in my work, all of this may change, but for now, I think that drumming is going to be the vocation of choice through which I center myself, de-stress, get playful, and prove myself.  Everyone needs something like that. 

We live for a reason.  We work for a reason.  Dont we?

OK,  since I’ve gotten so many e-mails telling me how much they want me to write more about my experiences with Lyme disease, turns out I do have something for today. 

Did you know, for example, that Lyme disease sufferers see an average of 5 doctors before they get a diagnosis? 

Sure enough, Doc 5 is the one that just put me on more antibiotics, because, frankly, he knows something about the disease, unlike Doc 4 who didn’t and didn’t think I even had Lyme.

I thought it might be interesting to provide a brief summary of my Doctors. 

Doc 1 wasn’t even a real doctor.  She was a physician’s assistant, and she prescribed an antibiotic that wasn’t appropriate for Lyme, while we waited for the test results which were negative because she tested me too early for antibodies to be present (as it turns out).  This while she told me emphatically (contradicting what I read, even if the test is done at the appropriate time) that the test is never a false negative.  If I had actually been treated effectively at this time, I would have saved a lot of time and money (but not experience).

Doc 2, after I dropped Doc 1 is now my new general practitioner.  She said my symptoms didn’t fit anything, and couldn’t find my Spleen, which had been hurting me still 5 weeks after I first started seeing her.  But she did order the Cat Scan which revealed that it was enlarged, eventually, and she is responsive and listens to me and defers to experts when she doesn’t want to make a mistake. 

Doc 3 was the neurologist doc 2 referred me too, before we knew it actually was Lyme disease with whom I spent the most money, and who finally ordered another Lyme test, after I came in with a list of possible illnesses that I could have, based on my own research, because no one else was getting anywhere.

Doc 4 was the infectious disease specialist that both doc 2 and 3 referred me to for his expert opinion on Lyme treatment, after the test came up a bit contradictory, though he personally had only one confirmed case in his career and declared that I didn’t have Lyme with the certainty we often see in evangelicals talking about evolution.  In response to information I had brought up from my extensive research (which came from a medical doctor who had much more experience with Lyme than he), he spoke words reminiscent of said evangelicals.  "It’s all theory!” he said.  (His bio, in mentioning that he does Christian mission work, supports my profile).

Doc 5 was the infectious disease specialist I sought out to replace Doc 4.  I got the referral by calling my dad, who called a pathologist friend of his who researches at Yale, which is located in a hotbed of Lyme activity, near where I picked it up, who asked a colleague of his for a recommendation in Atlanta who gave up Doc 5, who, it turns out, worked in Connecticut, when it was first being discovered, alongside the doctor who NAMED it.

That was a recommendation I could work with.

And Doc 5 said I definitely had Lyme.  I asked him on what basis he came to the conclusion, the tests, or the history, or the symptoms, and he said, “ALL OF IT.  You have classic Lyme symptoms, with classic incubation periods.  Everything fits!”  Although I had by this time completed one round of the antibiotics normally prescribed for early Lyme, from the Doctor who didn't think I had it, he prescribed me another round to be safe because mine had moved, at this point, beyond the early stage.

(for those of you who don’t know, Lyme Disease, a tick born illness named after Old Lyme Connecticut, where I visited my parents this summer and got bit, is much harder to cure the longer it goes without sufficient treatment).

His office used all of the latest technology, a cool wrist band automated device that you put on to take your blood pressure, a thermometer that you wave in front of your forehead to get a temperature (very "bones" if you know Star Trek), and when they take your blood, they give you a card with instructions on how to pull up the results online. 

Ant they did take blood - to check for two common coinfections that often accompany Lyme disease.

The only thing they haven’t figured out is how to get said blood without sticking you, and the nurse that did the sticking had an interesting quick jab technique the likes of which I had never seen, and which she had to execute three times before it finally worked.  I had to watch while she adjusted the needle in and out, trying to find the blood (I thought maybe I had run out).  She had apparently gone too far, and only as she was pulling the needle out in resignation did blood start to fill, but by the time she discovered that, she ahd removed the needle, and she had to stick me again. 

She said she was usually a one stick nurse, but I wonder what she meant by usually.  51% of the time, perhaps?

Third time and second arm was the charm. 

To top it off, I have a physical (long time ago scheduled) with Doc 2 on Monday, and I was kind of hoping to have some veins left for sticking.  I’m tired of being stuck. 

So there you have it.  Because you asked for it (but not really).

Whether it's a hobby or a business should make no difference.  I wonder what would happen if I was persistant, if I just kept trying to write and promote.  Not because I expected to make money, but just cause I want to get as far as I can, to garner as much recognition as I can.

The things I'd like to do, though, take a lot of time and organization (especially for me, cause I'm not quick at some of these things)

1) readying a collection for self-publication on Lulu.
2) keeping a functional website, with stories and a place where you can sign up to get notification of updates and a link to buy my book(s).
3) keeing track of writing contests and constantly submit stories to them, as well as to publications online and not

All of this takes time.  I wonder how much it would cost to have someone take care of that for me, where I could just send them the stories and they could put it into book format, and post it on my website, and keep track of contests, find new contests etc.

Is there anyone out there who would do all of this for a reasonable fixed fee? (I'd pay something by the hour, if it wasn't a lot, but it's easier to trust strangers if I can judge the value by the results).

I make money one way (accounting), so I should be able to farm some work out to someone who doesn't have the living expenses I have, needs some money, and maybe would enjoy it (and the work could be done from home).

YOU know what I'm saying?