The best laid plans…
I'm a planner at heart. Not only do I like to make a plan, but I also like to announce my plans so I can't back out of doing whatever it was I said I'd do. But we all know life doesn't always unfold as planned. When I was younger, I thought I had my life all laid out. School, work, etc. It all seemed so easy. On paper.
Here are a some examples of my plans and how they worked out, uh, not on paper:
The plan: Marry somewhere around twenty-five, first kid by twenty-eight, done having kids by my early thirties.
The reality: At the age of thirty-two, I married a man with two children from his previous marriage and raised them as my own.
The plan: To become super-business-woman like Tess McGill in Working Girl and live the big city dream with Harrison Ford.
The reality: I stumbled into a career I didn't even know existed when I was in my twenties and married a small-town guy from the south who bears a striking resemblance to Sherriff Woody from Toy Story.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. At. All. Although my life has taken a different path than the one I envisioned when I was a young adult, I have no regrets. So far, it's been pretty darn awesome. That realization got me thinking about how lucky I was to have the nerve to jump out of line.
By letting go of 'The Plan', I lived my life instead of programming it.
The conflict between dreams and reality is a central theme in most of my novels. In Contentment, Tracy Sullivan almost flushes her idyllic life down the toilet because she can't let go of her old dreams. Commitment was the story of Maggie McCann, a woman who discovers unanticipated happiness in a change of plan. Spring Chickens focuses on a couple brave enough to take a chance on a second chance at happiness. Even my paranormal romances, Paramour and its sequel Inamorata, feature characters who must learn to let go of the past in order to move forward.
Was it my plan to weave a common theme through every novel I've written thus far?
*snort* Not at all.
As a matter of fact, I didn't even realize that I had until I was explaining the premise of one of the books to an acquaintance. How cool is that?
Tell me, what plans have you changed when the prospect for something different came along?
Visit me at: http://www.margaretethridge.com/
Contact me at: mkethridge1@gmail.com
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Margaret Ethridge
www.margaretethridge.com - Facebook - Twitter
Paramour - Contentment - Commitment - Inamorata - Turquoise Morning Press Spring Chickens - The Wild Rose Press
5 comments:
My life hasn't gone at all according to plan, but I couldn't be happier with the way things have turned out. I think if it was an easy, straight forward path, it wouldn't be nearly as exciting. I'm only just now realizing how right this journey of life has been for me. I've loved reading your books, Margaret, and I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store! :)
Thanks, Julie!
I may change my path daily. It happens. :/
My plan as a teen was to leave AR and head for the big city on the east or west coast. Take your pick. I wanted to be in broadcast journalism. Stop snorting. It could've happened. I also wanted to marry Rick Springfield.
So, I'm in AR married to a guy who can't carry a tune to save his life. It's all good.
My junior year of high school the "plan" was to go to a state college to learn interior decorating. I wound up doing what I love best--working with books and reading. I like the change of plans!
When does anything really go as planned. All of a sudden I find myself writing a book to keep myself from falling off the deep end. Funny thing is, I discovered something I really wanted to do. My family thought I was going crazy, but they realize it is the next phase of my life.
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