Celebrate! Tell Your Friends!

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Celebrated my acceptance to Clarion yesterday by purchasing the Jonny Quest DVD boxed set. (Probably no one else celebrated with Jonny, Hadji, Race, Dr. Quest and Bandit, but hey, it’s my call to celebrate any way I want.)

P.O.E. met this morning. Everyone was very excited about Clarion. They asked a million questions and I answered the ones I could. It’s great to be around people who understand and support a writer’s passion for writing, or for the arts in general. No one in P.O.E. questioned my decision to leave my job and wife for six weeks and drive up to Michigan to learn how to become a better writer. My family and friends who are not writers but are musicians understand. They have the same passion, just channeled in a different direction. I have their blessing.

It’s my non-writer/non-musician family and friends who don’t understand. “What about your job?” “What are you going to do for a paycheck when you get back?” “You’re going to leave Cindy for six weeks?” (They seem to forget that when Cindy goes on tour with the Navy Band every year that she’s gone for nearly the same amount of time as I’ll spend at Clarion.) For anyone reading this who may be in a similar situation, you have to surround yourself with people who understand and believe in you. Stay away from negative people. If you don’t, you’ll doubt yourself and your decision. If I didn’t think this was the right move for me at the right time, I wouldn’t have done it. But I know that it is. Everything happens for a reason.