Ignored Your Blog?

Today I started reading someone's blog post entitled, "Ignored your Blog for Months?  13 Tips for Getting It Back on Track" by Miranda Hill.

I chuckled, admitted to God, "Yes, I have so ignored my blogs," and resolved to at least let you all know what I've been up to.

What I've been up to is school.  I attend Western Governors University and am pursuing a bachelor's degree in Healthcare Management.  We also suffered a death in the family in December, along with another family member's ongoing illness, so December was pretty much a mess in terms of personal life and education.  I am now back on track with school and am looking to complete the second class of my current term soon--but it's been a struggle.  Including my current class, I need to complete 27 more courses to finish.

To do this, I have had to put all of my writing on hold.  Every once in a while I will, out of wishful thinking, look at an open submission call and think, Oh, I really want to write a story for that!  But I am deluding myself.  School really is taking all of my time and attention, and any time or attention I don't devote to school is stealing from it and from my professional future.

It's to the point where I'm thinking of quitting voice lessons for a while so that I can save the money and not have to commit to daily practicing.  I already have stopped attending Thursday night choir practices at my church--because I can attend the practices on Sunday mornings, when I wouldn't be studying, anyway.  I've stopped  visiting Eastern Star chapters that I don't belong to, because attending their meetings takes time away from studying.

Not writing, though, is driving me batty!  When I don't write, I don't generate ideas for stories.  I feel creatively dead at the moment.  I don't know how I ever came up with story ideas; that happened to some other person.  Every once in a while, usually on a Saturday, I tell myself, To hell with school!  I'm going to write.  MUST.  WRITE.  SOMETHING!  And so I do, just to get it out of my system--and it feels wonderful!  But I also feel guilty about it.

Sometimes I wish this were a creative writing degree--but I hate those, because I hate trying to come up with ideas and plots on cue.  I suspect I would fail miserably if I pursued a degree in creative writing.  But sometimes, I am so tempted.

So that is why I've been absent, why you've seen no posts from me on anything.  I still have bouts of wishful thinking and self-delusion.  One of those might turn into a finished article or two, but I'm not holding my breath at this moment.

Love to you all!  I will post here occasionally, to let you know how the studies are going, but for now, I have to make this sacrifice, because the degree is worth it.