Out With the Old...In With the New

Change can be hard.

I don’t like change. I like things to stay the same. I like to cook the same recipes, wear the same style clothes, fix my hair the same way, write the same type stories using the same tried and true methods, go to the same restaurants…

I recently traded in my old bucket and twisted mop for a Swiffer mop. Can you believe it? With a crawler on my floors, I needed a quicker way to mop. Why did I wait so long?!?!?

But sometimes change can be good, healthy, and a huge time-saver.

Many years ago we hand-wrote all the checks for the company I worked for. This was in the mid-eighties when computers were just becoming available for small businesses. There came a time when the accounting department (okay, this consisted of like THREE people) decided that we needed to have computer-generated checks. And even though I had a computer science degree, I wasn’t sure that our caveman software could sustain the spelled out portion of the checks or how much programming it would take.

Really, it just seemed easier to just keep handwriting the checks. But it wasn’t meant to be. This was thirty-ish years ago, but we were able to get code from the software manufacturer that would convert the amount of the check to the hand-written version. And, as you probably guessed, our lives were so much easier.

Fast-forward another twenty years or so, and the company decided to overhaul and streamline the entire caveman process from the initial purchasing order all the way through to invoicing the customer. Kicking and screaming, we moved forward with this change. Yeah, the change was painful and took years to get it all working properly, but in the end, it was a wise move.

I’m the only one at home who drinks coffee, so I never actually owned a coffee maker,

and as long as I worked the day job, I drank a cup or two there on weekdays. Let’s just say I love my Keurig! Perfect for someone who works from home or alone in their office.

I made a change in 2012 that I’d waffled about for years: I quit my day job of 28 years to work from home. I spend my days writing, working for ACFW, bookkeeping for the family businesses and babysitting my precious grand baby.

I loved my job and the people I worked for and with, but finally making the decision to work from home was the best decision I ever made. Should I have made that change sooner? Could I have?

I don’t know. Maybe 2012 was the year God marked that change on his calendar even though I’d been trying to mark my calendar for so long.

Change is inevitable.

In life and in writing.

Sometimes this change makes your writing better, faster, more efficient. Sometimes a change that works for one might not work for another. My college English professor prefers to write on a typewriter to this day. If a magazine or newspaper requires one of his essays to be electronic, his wife types it up on her computer.

Pen and paper, typewriter, computer... those are just the beginning of writing decisions you’ll make on when to stay and when to change.

What is the best writing software to use? Word? Scrivener? Story Mind? Which computer will make your writing life easier? Which day planner? Should you keep plotting or start pantsing?

Is it time to change any of these?

Is it time to change publishers? Change agents? Or to look for an agent? Is it time to go Indie or hybrid? Is it time to change genres?

Change.

We spend so much time agonizing over whether to actually make a change. What if we minimize the worry and just do it?

I’m not going to say that I’ve always been happy with every decision or change I’ve ever made. I’m not going to say that I’ve always made those changes in God’s perfect timing. But I can honestly say that I don’t have a lot of regrets, and when I’ve made a major decision, I’ve been so pleased and at peace that I wondered why it took me so long to take the plunge.

I know there are some things that you can’t share, so the following questions are rhetorical, but please feel free to share if you can, and if not, you can just tell us that you are struggling with a decision, and we will help you pray.

Is there a change you’ve been thinking about and praying over for a long time, but just can’t make yourself take the leap? Thinking over changes that were a long time coming, did you think you made the right decision or not? Looking back, would you have made the change sooner rather than later?

But, seriously, if you love coffee, get a Keurig. Just sayin’

Pam Hillman left her day job to manage all the work related tasks waiting at home, but four years later, this little angel is the reason she's thrilled beyond measure to have made that decision in 2012. God orchestrated that change in his perfect timing.