Robin Layne's Blog: From the Red, Read Robin - Posts Tagged "time"

Written March 16, 2020 around 5:00 p.m.-- important to note because reality is changing drastically minute by minute lately. The following blog entry is my participation in an event of a MeetUp group called “Self-Quarantine Adventure Club.” It meets online, not in person.

I work in a theater, and it’s a theater where a lot of elderly people go. My job is to approach people there and invite them to watch previews for upcoming movies and give their opinions about them, then to reward them with $5 codes of Regal theater credit. It’s kind of a fun job, but I work hard, and my bus commute takes two hours each way. Usually I work only Saturdays and maybe Sundays after church, until 6 or 7 in the evening. Sometimes I get more hours, sometimes fewer. I don’t normally know until the night before whether I work that day at all. It’s feast or famine, I’ve realized, so I have to be careful with my money even when I have what looks like plenty to me. I’m used to barely getting by.

Along comes an epidemic of a sometimes deadly virus, and the world is quickly turning upside down. I was told that people are hoarding toilet paper and stores are rationing it, so I wonder what I’ll do when I run out of the package I have now. I have Kleenexes, but they can’t be thrown in a toilet, which means they will stink up my trash can and make for more garbage in the compacter. And when I run out of those, will I be able to get more?

Seeing headlines today that theaters are likely to be shut down tells me I’ll probably soon lose the shaky security I get from my job. I’m not helpless, though. As the saying goes, when God closes a door, He opens a window. Not that I believe God is the source of deadly diseases. No way! But I see a window of promise with bright light shining through for me… a window giving me time to develop a life I’ve always wanted—a life in which I make my living doing what I’m passionate about: writing!

When people ask me if I’ve been writing, I say, “You might as well ask me if I’ve been breathing!” Not that I spend as much time writing as I do breathing, but writing is nearly that important to me. When I was a little girl I knew I would be a writer. I was already making up novels in my head, word for word, during the hours I lay trying to get to sleep at night. I still remember some of the stories I planned to write. Some even already had titles. Miracle Under the Sea was about two girls who go scuba diving and get stuck in an underwater cave. Instead of drowning, somehow they turn into mermaids. A similar theme was a man who is snowed in in the valley where he lives and ends up getting out with a sleigh and delivering presents to all the children. I also thought up a story of a woman named Barbara who drives a jeep camper all over the U.S., visiting forests and finally settling in the one she likes best, in a snug log cabin, and she makes friends with the wild animals and has her own horse and her own dog; both run free on her land. This Barbara does what I planned to do. In my case, I would spend my time writing and become famous for my books.

My life hasn’t exactly fulfilled that dream, though at one point I lived in a cabin with woods behind it, and deer used to come nibble at the backyard garden or the front yard grass. And boy did I write there, with my big electric typewriter facing the bit of ocean I could see from the front window! I didn’t publish anything at the time, and I certainly didn’t get famous, but I was at peace, safe from a former fiance who had literally tried to choke the life out of me before I escaped him and was invited to hide out in a relative’s vacation home.

It used to be important that I be famous. I wanted all the kids who had teased me to read about me in the paper and be sorry they hated me. Now I don’t care what they think, and when I do publish my books they won’t know it’s me because I use a pseudonym. My destiny so far hasn’t allowed me to live in a forest, either. Circumstances have brought me near Portland, Oregon, where I now live in a suburb and don’t want to move out of my apartment ever, unless I get married, and there are no prospects for that.

My father always liked my writing but told me I would never make my living by it. “You’ll have to sell shoes or something, and write on the side.” So I spent my youth looking for a way to “sell shoes” that was substantial gainful employment. But I just don’t have much talent for things unrelated to writing. After a lot of upheavals that made me change colleges and majors, and after a lot of credits that didn’t count in the colleges I transferred to, I finally graduated with a bachelor’s in English and got some training and experience in editing. That made me eligible to apply for editing jobs, but the only one I ever got besides a few short freelance assignments was one for a publisher that gave me the experience of my dream, working in every phase of the editing process for novels, but paid so little I’m embarrassed to give the actual amounts. Good experience. Looks good on a resume. Helping other writers improve their work and publish their books is almost as satisfying to me as writing my own stories, poems, and songs. Everyone thinks my writing is great. I’ve even won contests, bringing in token payments. And one year I actually made hundreds of dollars from two short personal experience articles. The checks came to me in the same month, but there was no more money from writing that whole year—and none since.

People at my church have been writing books over the years, especially lately. Although I made it known I’m a professional editor, none of them has sought my services. I don’t know why. Some other people have contacted me saying they want me to edit their books, but every last one of them has backed out. I feel the old rejection from childhood hitting me hard. I know God values me, and that keeps me from despair. Finally, I asked a church member who recently published a book who her editor was, and she told me she found her from a certain website that helps freelancers connect with clients. I checked that website out and set up a profile. I still have to add testimonials from people I’ve edited for, and there are probably other things I should do to get people interested in my writing and editing, but I haven’t found the time.

The time… That’s what it’s going to be all about. Time to spend at home working on my current novel and memoir. Time to embellish my profile on that website, read how to best advertise my services there, and time to read and respond to proposals. Time to set up a new website, better than the disastrous one I've let go of. Time to establish myself as a paid writer and editor once and for all. To prove my father wrong. To prove I really am a writer, and a writer who can boost other writers’ successes. To realize the dream of my life. Thank You, Lord!

What just happened? The world is full of fear. I don't minimize the seriousness of the situation, but I’m holding on to hope. Hope that people who’d trusted that things would go on as always now realize they need help, and that they will turn to God for it. God can heal. God can protect. And God can raise the poor to a higher place. I think of Joseph in the Old Testament, who dreamed his destiny of rulership and lost everything to eventually realize that dream—not as a selfish domination of others but as the savior of the known world and a type of the One to come who would lay down His life to be the Savior of all who would follow Him. Like the Savior’s mother declared, God scatters the proud and exalts the lowly.
I’m tired of being trampled underfoot like a nobody. In this time of quarantine, I’m going for my dream. I will write and edit in my own home. I will do my work remotely. What just happened? I don't make light of the serious circumstances around me. But for me, it's a brand new day.