My Unbalanced Life by Mary Connealy

Mary Connealy

I have people ask me how I find time to do all the marketing involved with being an author and still get my books written.

Add in I’ve got a husband who likes some attention, four adult daughters who I love hanging around with, two glorious grandchildren who NEED THEIR GRANDMA!!! A home to maintain and a full time job.

So how do I do it all? Here’s the answer.

I don’t.

When someone asks me how I balance everything I have to admit I am unbalanced. I believe there has been some paperwork filed with the County Attorney to that affect.

Writing isn’t something I find time for. Writing is my default activity. I have to be dragged away from my stories. It’s the rest of my life that I struggle with.

Writers write. That’s what we do. No one can sit alone for hours on end, having imaginary conversations with themselves….if they don’t love it.

When you talk with a writer who is harried and exhausted and under deadline she may worry about getting her book finished but that’s not because she doesn’t love writing, it’s because life intrudes on her book. She has to pull herself away and feed small children. Field emergency phone calls. Pay attention to her husband, very often the man supporting her while she works on her often poorly paying little hobby/job. Walk the whining dog.

And we haven’t even talked about marketing. It’s fun to write blog posts.

I’m having a really good time right now. It’s writing, of course it’s fun. But it takes time. It takes creative energy. And that book is always whispering to you, alive in the back of your head ‘come back. You left your heroine hanging on a cliff by her fingernails. You left your hero heartbroken but too macho to admit he loves the heroine. You left a villain who needs to be arrested and shot and beaten with a big stick.

If the world would just leave a writer alone there would be only peace and harmony (for her at least, heaven help the kids and husband and dog).

I have people say to me A LOT ‘I think I have a book in me.’ Or sometimes, ‘I’ve always wanted to write a book.’

I always say, “You know, write if you have the desire but don’t feel bad if you never get that book written. Sitting alone hour after hour makin’ stuff up isn’t a very normal way to conduct your life and most people just can’t do it. They like human interaction, they like talking to REAL people. They like MOVING.

I tell heartbroken, cruelly rejected authors that if they can’t take the pain then GET OUT. Go do something else. The money is probably better in a career that includes the words, “You want fries with that?”

For the most part, writers can’t stop. The pain and rejection and public humiliation (I’m thinking of One Star Amazon Reviews here) would stop any writer if they could be stopped.

But there is peace in knowing this is how God made me. We just have to accept that. Embrace who we are. Live an unbalanced live with joy—since you can’t stop anyway.

About the Author

About Mary Connealy

Mary Connealy writes romantic comedy with cowboys. She is a Carol Award winner, and a Rita, Christy and Inspirational Reader's Choice finalist. She is the author of Swept Away and Fired Up, Book #1 & #2 in the Trouble in Texas series, Book #3 Stuck Together is coming June 2014. Mary is also in the anthologies A Bride for All Seasons and the newly released, A Match Made in Texas. She is also the author of the bestselling Kincaid Bride series, Lassoed in Texas Trilogy, Montana Marriages Trilogy and Sophie's Daughters Trilogy. Mary is married to a Nebraska rancher and has four grown daughters and two spectacular grandchildren, and one on the way.

A MATCH MADE IN TEXAS

There's a secret matchmaker at work in frontier Texas!

A Match Made in Texas
A Novella Collection

In the small town of Dry Gulch, Texas, a good-hearted busybody just can't keep herself from surreptitiously trying to match up women in dire straits with men of good character she hopes can help them. How is she to know she's also giving each couple a little nudge toward love?

Mary’s book in this collection--Meeting Her Match

When the tables are turned and a tenderhearted meddler becomes the beneficiary of a matchmaking scheme, her world is turned upside down. As her entire life changes, will she finally be able to tell the banker's son how much she cares for him?

Mary's Websites

Seekerville
Petticoats & Pistols
My Blog
My Website
My Newsletter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryconnealy
Twitter: http://twitter.com/maryconnealy