Moving Against the Flow

It's back to a bare page for today's story - good bones and theme, poor structure. Time to scrap it and do it again, this time with a different perspective. It'll work, just not as a conversation as I had originally envisioned. If you're getting the impression that often I start a story (or chapter or whatever), write a bit of it, discover that I've entered the quagmire of "meh" and retreat, you're right. Often the path that looks great from the shore disappears or becomes a bloated mess half-way through the marsh. With artwork, I call it my "meh" stage, and everything goes through it. But with writing, it often requires a serious pruning or shift in POV; in other words, not just a "meh", but a total obliteration and restructure.

Sometimes you have to change direction to get to the other side. In writing,
that happens often - at least to me. It's part of the challenge. 

Life can take swings like that too. Jobs come and go, for instance. The idea of a job for life which our parents sometimes had the opportunity to have is a foreign concept in today's work force. The goal of working for a single company for 25-50 years and they, in turn, will provide you with a pension that will be sufficient to live out your retirement with is an idea of the past. It's a shame in a lot of ways. Now you have a career, but you job hop - still working in your chosen profession, but for any number of different employers. And retirement? Well, that's now your own responsibility, with very few exceptions.

Taking a river cruise through Europe certainly isn't for everyone. It's expensive,
it can have problems with flooding or low water levels in those rivers, and
a lot of the traveling is actually done during the night so that you're exploring
the land visits during the day - missing the view of a lot of lovely countryside.
But friends I have who have done them have all loved it. So it's a thought. 

A friend at the YMCA told us about a personal friend she has who retired and wanted to travel. She and her husband wanted to sail all over Europe on one of those river cruising boats. They spent three months traveling the waterways of Europe, spent $100,000 to do that in the fashion and style that they wanted, and had a wonderful time. Other friends and acquaintences were giving the woman a hard time about spending her retirement money on such a thing. She, in turn, said "I'm retired, I could die tomorrow. Now I'll die happy with a dream fulfilled." It's not a bad way to go :-)

Sometimes going with the flow is not a great thing to do. Sometimes you
have to take up your courage and move against the current to get
somewhere in life. Don't give up - just change the path to a different one. 

So be flexible, move with the flow but change as you need to. Sometimes that change will come in mid-stream, and that's OK too. Just remember where the shoreline is if you have to retreat and begin the journey once again. Have a lovely Friday, I'm planning on having a great day after I change the viewpoint and structure of my current story - LOL.