Welcome, welcome. Hope you’re finding yourself well. Let me tell you, its been a hell of a week here for me. Pitched an idea to a friend and they loved the idea so I have now added another project to my long laundry list of things to do. This seems to be a problem of mine, and drives my wife CRAZY. If you read my last post you know that I have a pretty busy day to day life. Don’t get me wrong, there are days I “flatline” and do nothing all day. For example, yesterday. I did pretty much nothing but binge watch Schitt’s Creek with Suzanne… though I did send out a couple Query letters to try and land myself an agent. But most days are busy, and sometimes I stretch myself pretty thin, as you’re about to find out. As much as most people don’t want to, let’s rewind to a year ago, when Covid brought the world to a screeching halt. (I promise I will barely talk about the actual virus.) Onwards!
So everyone knows and remembers the way things got so crazy in the world, grocery stores were bought out of a ton of things and all that jazz, it seemed like people were going crazy. Now it may have been bad timing but just before all this I was binge watching A LOT of zombie movies, pretty much any one, new or old I could find. so when things went to shit my brain immediately snapped into “survival mode.” I started researching some crazy things, but I won’t get into that, but in the end I will say I did learn some pretty neat things. Anywhoo… so Suzanne lost her job due to the wonderful things happening in the world, I was lucky enough to be able to keep my day job, but things got tight of course. To keep a long story short(er) I learned many things, how to make mead, I expanded the garden, learned a lot about homeopathy and living off the land, how to can and make a lot of things myself (to save as much money as possible) and also in the interest of trying to keep the financials up, I was running a small gluten free bakery from my home (it was legal, had my license and everything) I was also trying to write, and had the crazy idea to start a YouTube channel (really, I don’t know what I was thinking), maybe to blog, just all these things ran through my head.
So you could say that I wasn’t just burning the candle from both ends, I decided to light the damn thing in the middle as well. With the kids and Suzanne stuck at home and me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, at one point my daughter just looked at me and said “Stop, you’re making us all feel bad.” When I asked her what she meant she explained to me that I was doing all these things and it was making her feel bad. So I took a step back and went through everything. She was right. Not only was I still working full time, I had loaded my plate to the point of shattering under the weight. So I reflected and realized I was putting a lot of stress on myself, which was making my tired, grumpy and mentally unhealthy. So I decided to unload my burdens. First to go was the realization that the world wasn’t going to turn into the zombie apocalypse so I could stop sharpening my rake handles. Next was the bakery, people loved the food but trying to bake and market and all that crap after working 8 hours was near impossible. Plus it got to be a real pain in the ass trying to connect with the customer to deliver their orders. After that was the YouTube channel (it was centered around mead and baking.) It was fun and an interesting experience, but I just didn’t have the time needed to dedicate to filming and editing. I realized that the written word was a better place for me. So I decided to drop everything and focus on what I really wanted to do. Write; and it seemed just in time. It was October at this point, and we had early heavy frost so I had to dig up the garden. With that task done and out of the way until spring that freed up even more time, and I figured I would attempt NaNoWriMo. I thought of doing this for several years but the timing was just never right. So I picked up my writing and put my full effort into it. I did end up winning it (Write 50,000 words in a month) and from there the bug of writing as a career began to burrow into my head.
Now, several months later we are here. I have written several novels in various points of the process ( One ready to query, one ready for first round edits, one half written and several partially started and a lot of ideas on Post-It notes) I have started this website and I am once again adding onto my plate again with my pitch being accepted. I am becoming more and more busy once again, but at least this time it’s all centered around writing… so that’s better…right?
Well that was my year, just crazy ass busyness, a lot of learning, and a discovering of my true passion. I have goals set now for where I would like to be, and through some hard work, some “piling the plate to full”, and a lot of understanding from Suzanne, I will see my vision come to fruition. I know it will all be worth it in the end, as writing, of any sort, has become a happy place. Stay tuned, more updates and great things are in store!
P.S. I do still make mead, as that really became a fun “hobby.”
BradleyGosselin 