Last week I wrote about the roller coaster of writing. This week I think I’ll tackle something that pertains to life in general, as much as it pertains to writing.

It’s when life happens.

When you’re going along, doing your thing, and then life throws you a curveball. It might be something as innocuous as getting a flat tire on the way to work and realizing that you forgot to charge your cell phone last night so you can’t call for help. Now, this scenario might throw off your whole day because now you’re going to be late, you might get yelled at, and you’re going to have to work through lunch to get that project finished by the end of the day. 

Or, it might be something more important, something that can change the rest of your life. The death of a loved one, a life threatening illness or injury, a house fire, or a million other things that can throw your world off of its axel.

The thing is, we have to figure out how to go on, how to adjust to the new reality. We have to learn to focus on the things we can control and let the rest play out as it will. As much as some of us would like to believe otherwise, we have very little control over life. It’s not easy to let things go, to not worry about them, but worrying and stressing doesn’t do any good. 

This is something I’ve really been working on this year. It’s so easy to get caught up on the minutia of things that we lose the bigger picture. 

I find that social media is one of the things that I have to step away from often. While I love being able to connect with other likeminded people online I have to do so in moderation. I’m not someone who thrives on drama and so when things seem to be going that way I tend to step away. I know I’m not the only person who feels that way. 

As a writer, the stuff happening around us can have a big impact on our mental state. Which can then have a big impact on our writing. I’m not one of those authors who can write when I’m sad or upset. I have to be happy to write. Therefore, stress and drama don’t work with my writing life. Which is one of the reasons I do my best to avoid it.

But what happens when you can’t avoid it? 

There’s a lot going on in the indie publishing community this last month and it has spawned a lot of drama. And while I’d like nothing more than to just avoid social media until it passes, this isn’t something that I can really afford to ignore. It’s important. Not only to indie publishing, but to the publishing community as a whole. It could have wide reaching consequences and since I am someone who prefers to be well informed, I’ve been following things closely. But I’ve started to limit my sources down to the two or three that have been reporting on things but without all the drama. I’m very much a “just the facts ma’am” kind of gal.

I’ve still spent too much time reading court documents and transcripts, but it allows me to stay informed without being overwhelmed. I’m controlling what I can and I’m letting the rest play out as it will. 

It’s all I really can do. It’s all any of use can do. As writers we can’t control the retailers, we can’t control readers, we can’t control social media sites, the one thing we can control is the stories. So do what you need to do in order to be able to keep putting words on the page. To be able to keep telling the stories. Change is inevitable. That’s as true for publishing as it is for anything else. The platform might change, the format might change, the popular genre or trope might change, but if you continue to tell stories that your readers love, then that’s all that matters. Instead of stressing about the things you can’t control, focus on what you can.