February 13: Writing Prompt #44-Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

Tell us about something you know you should do . . . but don’t.

I shoulda, woulda, coulda pursued my passion for a writing career more fervently over the years.  I majored in English, took a writer’s course to teach me specifically how to write, market, and sell my work, self-published 2 children’s books, wrote many a query letter for articles and picture books to numerous magazines and book publishers back in the days when most writing markets would take unsolicited work for consideration. I even wrote for the local paper in my first years on Kwajalein (as a feature writer) and looked into hiring an agent for my work and yet I still have a large accordion folder full of writing pieces and ideas, finished and unfinished, just waiting to be discovered by someone who thinks its worthy of publication. 

I’ve read many a book, article, and blog over the years discussing how hard it is to get published, how writers must be patient and suffer many, many rejection letters before they have success, and it still may be very limited success at that. Very few writers make a living from just writing. I understand all this, and I do have several rejection letters, but I gave up too soon. I still dream about having a full-blown writing career and probably always will, but I’m not sure my drive is strong enough.  I haven’t even really attempted to promote and market my children’s book since arriving in WA.  I haven’t sent any queries or received any rejections letters in years either. 

Unfortunately, I can use the excuse that life got in the way, and it certainly has been taking up most of my time. I’m starting to struggle with even completing this blog every day as I head to work before the sun comes up, arrive home with just enough time to walk the dog before it gets dark, then it’s time for dinner and bed if we don’t have any kid business (like basketball practice) to take of the rest of our evening before we crash.  In fact, including tonight as I write this, I sometimes have a very hard time even staying awake long enough to complete my blog entry each night.

Life has been busy, but I can’t help feeling like if I really wanted it that bad, I could have gotten there already if I invested more time and energy into it. Whatever the reason is that my shoulda, woulda, coulda’s have not been accomplished, I will continue to write anyway, if for no one other than me and my own personal therapy.  Money, fame, and career or not, writing will always been a hugely important part of my life.  What about you? Have you ever tried writing  as a form of therapy?