Career Planning, or Sailing Blind

© Krzysztof Ostoja-helczynski | Dreamstime Stock Photos

In the day job, there are supervisions and appraisals. Evaluations and training needs assessments. Recently I've been looking at coporate, team and personal goals. Short, medium and long term. I can look at strategies, plans and peg my own aspirations to them. I can work with my line manager, area manager and team to set realistic, appropriate goals. Beyond that, I can career plan and set where I want to be in a few years' time.

 I feel the need for some writing career planning, but who do I work with? I need direction and an action plan.

"Are you okay, you look sad," asked Husband the other day. I wasn't sad, precisely, just preoccupied with trying to work out something I didn't appear to be able to work out... I couldn't figure out what to do and how to get there.

Yes, I know I could just write, but I feel like that old adage, "if one does not know for which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable." I've had a long break from writing seriously, and my writing confidence has suffered and I no longer know for sure what I can do.

Should I finish the big blockbuster or the abandoned Third Book? Should I try something completely different, or turn my attention to short stories? I feel like I can't afford to get this wrong, but have no idea how to work through it to get it right.

But maybe - unpalateable thought - there is no right or wrong thing and everything must take its chance.

But, man, I need a plan.

Inspired by Books

Have any of the books you’ve read made you dream of doing something in particular?  Or have you ever been inspired by a book to do something in real life?  I have.

Book cover courtesy of Wikipedia

I can’t remember when I first read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but I know I loved it even more than A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy, both of which I’d enjoyed.  It wasn’t so much the story of spoiled Mary and her transformation into a happy, loving little girl that caught my imagination, however, but the garden itself.  The image of a secret garden, enclosed by tall brick walls and covered in trailing roses stuck in my mind.  A creaking iron gate, a pond, an intelligent little robin hopping round the place, gravel paths and a riot of flowers ...  I wanted that garden!  And I still do.

My husband and I recently moved to the countryside and the house we’ve bought has a large garden.  Not a walled one or even one full of flowers – most of the flower beds contained nothing but ugly bushes of one sort or another – but a garden nonetheless.  And now I am determined to transform it into the secret garden of my dreams.

This may take years – in fact, there’s no doubt about that, it will – and I’ll have to do most of the work myself, with a little help from my DH as we can’t afford to get in a garden designer and a team of landscape gardeners.  But I don’t mind because it’s going to be fun.  It’s going to be a challenge.  And I will learn as I go along.

A couple of weeks ago I made a start.  Not on the garden itself, but on the learning part.  I had a lesson in brick-laying.  My daughters thought I’d gone mad, but in order to have a secret garden I need brick walls obviously and I want to build them myself.  Ok, so one lesson probably won’t be enough for me to build an entire wall straight away, but I figured I could start by building raised flower beds at least.  How hard can it be to lay bricks in a rectangle?  (Sort of like Lego, but bigger, right?)  Then I can grow things like vegetables without having to bend over too much for the dreaded weeding.

I really enjoyed the lesson and although I was clumsy and felt like I was the slowest brick-layer in the history of mankind, I managed to build a little wall.  (We were indoors practising, thankfully, as the weather outside was freezing!)  I even managed to do the pointing and I learned to always use a spirit level to lay the bricks evenly.  I can do this!  And I’m even more determined now I’ve tried.

Patience isn’t one of my greatest virtues, but if I start now and build say 5 metres of wall every year for the next 20 years, I might have my secret garden.  And in the meantime, I can create the flowerbeds and paths inside it.  Now doesn’t that sound great?  Oh, and if any of you feel like coming over to help, it might not take quite so long and you can enjoy the tranquillity of my secret garden too :-)

Two exciting years!

'You know when you click with people?  Well two years ago at the RNA Conference in Greenwich that magic happened.  We were like kids, having breakfast at McDonalds every morning and drinking wine late into the evenings.  One night Susanna mentioned doing a blog together as a way of keeping the magic going and it has.  Being a part of the Heroine Addicts holds onto the camaraderie built on friendship and books and writing ... bliss.'

The above is what Liz Fenwick said when we were talking about the Heroine Addicts and our second anniversary, and I think she speaks for us all.  I can’t believe it’s been two years today since we started this blog – time has just rushed by, as it always does when you’re having fun!

‘Friendship, books and writing’ – bliss indeed!  In fact, I can’t think of anything better and through the Heroine Addicts, we really have kept the magic going.  It’s been especially great in that it’s kept us in touch with Susanna, who we don’t get to see as often, but being together here makes it seem like she’s really close.  Triumphs and tribulations are shared and enjoyed or suffered vicariously.  In the case of triumphs, it’s lovely to know that others are pleased on your behalf, and in the case of tribulations, there’s always a shoulder to lean on.  We all write, we all know how it feels and it’s easy to empathise when the going gets tough.  And a lot has happened in these two years, we’ve all moved forward in different ways and I think the triumphs definitely outweigh the negatives!

Whenever we meet up, there’s a wonderful feeling of belonging, and even when the group photos don’t quite work out (yep, that’s me with my eyes closed!), it doesn’t matter – being together was the important part!

When we first began, I was a bit doubtful about my ability to produce blog posts that anyone would actually want to read.  I was new to the whole blogging thing and other people’s posts always seemed a lot more interesting somehow.  Also, how would I come up with enough topics?  Could I think of something to say each time it was my turn?  The answer (so far) has been yes, because we seem to ‘spark’ off each other and one topic brings to mind another, keeping the momentum going.  It’s great fun and I look forward to reading what the others have to say every week, wondering what they’ll come up with next.

Writing is of course the main theme, but we seem to have covered a whole host of related subjects too, with a few recurring ones such as Professor Snape and other heroes, plotting, inspiration and panicking about various things - all very important!

I’m very grateful to be a part of this lovely group, so HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US and here’s to many more years of the Heroine Addicts – I can’t wait to read on!

Choices

We're having a clear-out. We have a roomy, if crumbling, three-bedroomed home, and just the two of us have rather spread out to fill the available space. We need to clear out, tidy up, redecorate in places.

But what we really need to reduce is..... I'm sorry folks, but it's the number of books we have. We have books in nearly every room, and the two landings are groaning with them. It's almost at the stage where you have to shuffle sideways to pass by. We don't have shelf space for them all. We very nearly don't have FLOOR space for them all...

I'm not usually a book-discarder. I'm more of a book hoarder. I remember in my teens being horrified when my parents went through a similar process. "How can you give this away?! It's a BOOK!" But it's okay, we're making space for good reasons, so I can reconcile this with my bibliophile soul....

(eBooks is a whole other story, but there's a difference between the books I want to share my phone with, and the books I want to share my home with.)

But the trouble is how to choose. What actually makes a keeper? Must I keep this signed copy, even though my reading tastes have changed and I'm never likely to read their work again? Do I keep this book, because I sent friends running to buy it when I was signing my first book at the RWA mass literacy autographing? Do I keep this book, even though I don't much like it, because I love this particular author?

As a reader and a writer with a lot of writer friends, the lines between book-that-is-a-story and book-that-is-the-book-of-my-friend become very blurred, and influence the decision-making of decluttering a lot.

Some choices are easy. Close friends' books (which currently fill two shelves, hooray!) are no-brainers. There are some authors (but VERY few, as it turns out) that I will keep all their books because they are ALL magnificently good. Other authors where a particular series really caught me, and will continue to be re-read. The Mary Stewarts, the D L Sayers, the Terry Pratchetts... those collections stay in their entirity, of course, including duplicates (because you never know when a book might get damaged!) There's one four-shelf collection of the 'complete works of' which I'm slightly embarassed about, but I'll keep because they're great comforters, I read them a lot when I'm not feeling well, and, well, I like them. So there.

While mining my book collection, I've found large seams of books that I haven't read in years, that I wouldn't really choose to read any more, but that have fond associations with places or people. But they are people I'm never likely to meet or talk to again, and places I may never go again. They belong to another "me". So, although it feels a little bit like I'm giving away a part of myself, they've got to go. I'll keep a few, just as reminders, but I can't make space for a book in my home just because it has a whisp of fond memory attached.

So. Keepers, then, it turns out, are the books of close friends, books I will read again many times, and a few, a treasured few, that fly the flag for past times.

What are keepers to you? How do you choose what to keep, and what to pass on?