This was a quote of the day on The Northern Colorado Writers Guild Facebook site this week…. “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” Pablo Picasso. I’ve chucked IT all to write full time. By IT, I mean teaching middle school English full time. A stable, if underrated, under paid, and under appreciated career at best. I was squeezing in writing time early Sunday mornings before the family woke up and began to make demands on my time. Teachers out there know that teaching is MORE than a full time job. It leaves you wiped out mentally, emotionally and physically. Not a great place to tap into your creative juices.

You’ll find countless articles on “Keep Your Day Job…Writing Doesn’t Pay”. Countless folks exclaimed their disbelief over my foolishness when I announced my intentions to quit my full time job to pursue my career. I get it. The Beard and I spent many hours discussing, crunching numbers and weighing consequences. Seriously….I’m cleaning my own house. Tell me I didn’t take this path with grave sincerity. My first novel, The Esau Emergence, is published while the sequel moves forward on the page.

I spent yesterday subbing in a fifth grade classroom. I akin teaching to running an ultra marathon….without training or being out of shape will kill you. I’m out of shape. I’m not ashamed to say it. Rather, it’s illuminating to realize the insane limits that I pushed myself. I don’t miss it. Bless you teachers still running the race. I’m out. And I’ve stepped into my dream job. As irrational as it sounds to almost everyone, I have to embrace the irrational.

There isn’t a day that I’m not busy with something whether it be writing, marketing, accounting, parenting, cleaning, dog wrangling, cooking or some other necessary duty that keeps this circus afloat. In any case, even my down days are filled with a sigh of gratitude that I was able to make this change. I don’t love cleaning the house, but compared to yesterday’s exertion, I’ll clean my house. That’s saying something!