In which I declare my intent to become a boomerang

In a little over a month, I, a nearly thirty (non-productive) writer, (barely productive) artist, (directionless) theorist, and (outstanding) provider of retail-based customer service, will be moving back in with my mother after about ten years more or less on my own.

Oh boy.

It came about because our (my partner's and my) lease will be up June first; he's moving to another town where he hopes to attend graduate school and I... well, I didn't want to go.

We've lived in Lansing, Michigan for almost two years. It's an all right place with an excellent mass transit system, an easily and safely navigable downtown, and some of the more awesome people I've been lucky enough to meet in my life. And as pleasant as it's been, I have not been focused on following any of the dreams I once had for myself. I say “once had” because I set them aside, by and large, due mostly to my belief that I “couldn't” do anything about them. Anything that's dependent on someone else just didn't seem at all feasible.

I've paralyzed myself when it comes to writing. Since I finished my Master's degree, I have written a bit—but before I started school, I filled between 15 and 20 pages a day, by hand, both sides of the page, absolutely absorbed. Maybe it just worked that way. That was the time when I could produce, produce, produce and now I can revise, revisit and rework. Note: that was well over ten years ago.

See, I have this story. Series of stories. Okay, I have nine book length stories of a fantasy and sci-fi series that spans several million years, a few planets and maybe even a cycle of creation in the grand scale of the universe. I might be on draft 25 of book one. I always intend for the newest draft to be the last one before I put it out there. I sent it to Tor once a few years ago and had a teeny bit of pride at having a real life rejection letter from a real life publisher.

The world is a different place for writers than it was ten years ago. I can self-publish on Amazon in e-book form. I can put up .pdf files for free for anyone who cares to read them. I can be read and judged and dismissed and maybe even liked. But, like everything else in my life, I've just felt like I “couldn't” write.

Just like I suddenly felt like I “couldn't” move, not again, for purposes having nothing to do with what I wanted. I love my partner, of course, and wish the absolute best for him. I hope he gets to do what he wants to do. I just... don't mind if I'm not a central part of it. I can't keep going at a pointless job, distracting myself with video games and Facebook and all the things I'm actually tired of on the Interwebs.

What can I do in six months? What can I do before 2013? And why is time such a huge factor in this for me?

I feel like I need to get sorted.

Telling my mother that we were moving, I expressed my reluctance and frustrations. “I just want to live on the futon in your living room.”

My mother responded, “We can do that.”

And one of those obligatory light switch “a-ha!” moments came.  I eased into it in discussion with my partner. “I might...” I started with, but made the decision final when he pressed me. He was looking for apartments, hoping to find one near a bus line because I (nearly thirty) never got a license. I refused to be a bother—my mother doesn't find me a bother, though she soon might—and made a definitive decision—the quickest I might have ever made.

I'm going home. I'll recuperate, I'll write, I'll save money from my pointless job, get a license, help my mother get a decent car, spend a wonderful summer with my beloved cousins, and eventually I will move somewhere I want to live and go to a school I want to go to instead of settle for or pass time in.

And hopefully, by the end of this year, I'll have a finished book on Amazon.