Come Along as I Leap

Not another blog!

The last thing the internet needs is yet another writer blathering on about their life’s experiences, and yet here I am, adding my voice to the cacophany. It seems foolish, because lately I keep running across internet articles that make me think we have jumped the online writing shark. Articles like – You’re Wiping with Toilet Paper All Wrong, or How to Act Before and After a Massage, or An Open Letter to my Ex-husband’s Latest Conquest Who Wants to Raise my Child. Really? Selling an article has come to that? More humliliating, that writer probably only got paid a few dollars for their work. But still, I’m joining in.

This isn’t my first chasm.

If you didn’t read the ‘about’ page, let me catch you up to speed on why you might enjoy reading this blog among the many that are out there. I am a 50-year-old woman who you wouldn’t bother talking to if you sat next to me on a plane. Trust me on that, I’ve had lots of silent flights. However, hidden behind my plain exterior are many adventures.

I grew up with 1000 acres of South Dakota prarie to roam. I spent most of those years imagining I was someone and somewhere else, so when I finally was old enough to make that happen, I went adventuring. I spent a couple of years in Hawaii (chasm 1), returned back to South Dakota before heading off for a summer working in Yellowstone National Park. That summer opened my mind to possibilities, and I just kept going. From there I worked at the Grand Canyon, where I learned about a job at an outdoor science school in California. After leading 5th and 6th graders on nature trails, and helping them deal with a week away from home, I moved into L.A. (chasm 2) to make it big in film and television. Almost immediately my typing speed and work ethic landed me steady employment as a teleprompter operator.

There I was, a small town, farm kid working with Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Michael Jackson, Sydney Poitier, Bill Clinton, Neil Simon and John Candy. The list could actually go on and on and on. It made my mind spin. Pulling onto the lot at Universal or Warner Brothers was absolutely thrilling. I was living my dreams every day. Based on that early success, I was convinced only great things lay ahead for me. However, my career stalled when I took a job with the Late Late Show. With no ability to move up, and no opportunity to grow, I stagnated. Since my interests weren’t in late night television, I wasn’t making the connections that could take me where I wanted. Efforts to find my way out always got squashed. When the economy fell apart, it was even harder to leave.

A few years ago, I realized I was too old to realistically expect a writing career to take off in Hollywood.  Prompting paid a decent wage, but there was no pension or retirement waiting for me. My later years were looking very bleak. Staying where I was seemed like death, yet lying before me was empty space. I was standing at a great chasm.

This Time I’m Jumping With a Net

The game changer for me was a risk I took 5 years ago when I invested my entire life’s savings into a house after the real estate market bottomed out. The market recovered more quickly than I expected and will allow me some starting over money – a net, if you will. I decided almost a year ago that when the previous incarnation of the Late Late Show ended, I would sell my house, leave the industry, find someplace affordable to live, and throw myself into a writing career. I’m risking everything I’ve managed to accumulate all these years. It will give me a cushion that will keep me afloat for a few years, but ultimately, it will have to be my words that provide my income for my later years. I have a net, but it’s a thin one.

Enough of the exposition…

… let’s pick up where I am currently. I’ve been out of the entertainment industry a little over a month, I’m in escrow with my house, packing up the life it took me 25 years to build, and heading across the country to Missouri. A place with a good friend, a circle of supportive women I’m just getting to know, a low cost of living, thunderstorms – which I miss terribly, and lots of peace, quiet, and beauty… the perfect place to reinvent my life and allow the words to flow.

Come with me on this journey. See if I fly or fall. Let me inspire you to create the life of your dreams. Tell me about your leaps of faith. Let’s create a community that jumps in faith, believing that they will land spectacularly on the other side. Afterall, it’s not as wide as you think.

 

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