Starting Over

COVID killed a lot of things, among them my creativity. Prior to COVID I worked as a writer. I wrote short stories that got published. I wrote books, 33 of which were published by traditional publishers. I was shortlisted and won many writing awards. I made more money than I’d ever made in my previous careers. It was a life I loved.

Then the pandemic hit. No one was working. My daughter was pregnant with my first grandchild and had moved back home. She’s a musician and her job disappeared almost immediatly. I was divorced and had no one to lean on. So I started writing at Upwork, the worst place for any writer with even an inch of talent. The clients, in the main, treat you like a slave and pay you slave wages. But I had to earn money constantly, not wait for royalties (which under COVID were highly unpredicatable), so I swallowed my pride and accepted those slave wages and disrespectful treatment.

The problem, I see now, is that when I accepted what the clients at Upwork thought of me, I somehow erased the writer that I was. Creativity is not as resilient as I thought. When I went looking for it again, it was nowhere to be found. I told myself I was a writer only good enough to write at Upwork and to be treated unprofessionally by the clients and Upwork itself. My creativity said, “Okay, if that’s who you think you are, then I’m out.”

I tried everything to find myself again. A trip to Cape Town and a book showed me a new path. I found The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I knew about the book but had never actuall seen it, or knew what it was all about. I read a bit while I was there and two of my good friends in Cape Town decided to join me to do The Artist’s Way programme in the hope that I might find my creativity again and, hopefully, find myself. And it worked!

By the fourth week, I made a vow that no matter how broke I was, I would NEVER write for Upwork again. I would never undermine my own talent and creativity. Instead I would nuture it, I would feed it at every chance, I would give it the respect that it deserved. I would have faith that the Divine Creator had given me creativity and I would never disrespect that gift again. Slowly my creativity came back and there I was! What incredible grace I’d been shown. I would not be so wasteful of my gift ever again.

So I’m on a new exciting journey. I have complete faith in my new creative journey, so much so that I will not rely on my preCOVID acheivements. I’m carving a new creative path and, as such, walking and working under a new name: Laura Reilly, Reilly being my mother’s maiden name, my mother the poet who never got the chance to walk her own path. I will walk my new path with her. How exciting to rediscover yourself in your 60th year. This substack will be about everything but mostly about how this new journey progresses.