How Writing is Like Ice Cream

I love this video because it reminds me that sometimes I’m so focused on one thing that I can’t see the other stuff (sometimes too cool not to be missed stuff) going on around me.

I will make a confession. Since the LDSstorymakers Conference, I have been toying with the idea of abandoning my self-publishing goals and querying a traditional publisher. My reasoning was: (notice the past tense)

1.       When I first decided to self-publish I still had children at home and my life was busy, full and not really my own, but now that my children are leaving for college—I have much more flexibility and time I can devote to someone else’s idea of how I should manage a career.

2.       I could really use the help of a professional editor, publisher, formatter, and marketing team.

Those are the reasons I vocalized. The reasons I didn’t admit, even to myself, had much more to do with vanity, pride and wanting my ego stroked.

I need to remember that writing for me is a lot like ice cream. The beauty of ice cream is that there is always room for ice cream. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve eaten, or how stuffed you are—there’s always room for ice cream. It slides in and fills in all the cracks. But it’s not the meal. It’s never the main course.

Writing is not and never will be my life. My life is babies and weddings and ailing loved ones and graduations and missions and funerals…family and friends stuff…creating a home stuff…serving and church stuff. Writing is the ice cream.

It’s sometimes hard to remember that. Sometimes I get too focused on watching my books rise and fall in the Amazon rankings that I forget the real reason I write—because it’s cool, like ice cream, and it fills in all the empty spaces with stories I love.