I’ve been a bit torn lately. I get why they say “No man can serve two masters.”
I’ve had my writing for a long time, and that’s been my main focus for the last fifteen years. Then the flying thing came along, and I said okay, I’m going to throw myself at that right now while I have the opportunity, and set writing aside for a bit. It’s not going to kill me to set writing aside. It would if it was for something I didn’t love, but I love flying at least as much as I love writing.
This winter, C-FLUG isn’t allowed out to play if it’s colder than -20 Celsius, so I haven’t been able to fly much. I’ve been writing, and there’s things happening on that front, so it’s encouraging. So at once I’m kind of turning my focus back to writing, while still trying to get in the air every chance I get. I keep feeling guilty about putting one before the other, and vice versa. I feel like I’m doing a terrible job of managing my time, and I get frustrated.
But then I realized that was why I was frustrated – because I had these two things, and I can’t do them both at the same time. I’d have more time for both if I didn’t still have to keep the day job, but as it is, that’s not yet an option. I’m very close to one or the other of them taking off (excuse the pun), one if I could get a break with the weather to get some flying in and finish my commercial license, the other if I could get a break with an agent. And that closeness to making it with both makes it that much more frustrating that I’m dividing my attention between them.
So from there, taking that step back to realize that’s why I’m getting stressed out about it, I think that’s going to make it easier to deal with. Because to hell with anyone who says I have to pick one and give up the other. If anyone tells me no man can serve two masters, here’s what I have to say to that!
Lindsay Kitson - Author and Pilot 
Three masters actually, Or three servants? Your GIF stole my first idea for a comment, so all I can now suggest is cloning. Lindsay 2 can do the day job.
wouldn’t that be nice 😛
Made me realize how lucky I am to have a great flying job that leaves me ample time to write. Don’t give up either.
Don’t worry, I have no plans on giving up either.
Ha! I was going to mention the “no MAN can serve two masters” thing.
So I had a whole bunch of thoughts on this, please bear with me.
The original context for that phrase is worth looking at. It’s from Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
To which I say, basically “yep”. This is about where you place your value and your idenity, essentially – where and what do you worship?
But I wonder whether your context (and the context for many writers) is subtly different, in that what you are doing is not so much trying to serve two masters as juggle two, (or three, or four) passions in life. These are all things that you can legitimately put time and effort in to, the trick is to know how much. And I say three or four passions because, okay there’s flying and writing and these are huge for you, but then you have a husband, and family, and maybe other things you care about. I mean, maybe you want to spend five mintues with your cat every day? Why not?
So maybe the real deal here is, how much time and effort do you put into each one of these pasions? And maybe those amounts of time change but it isn’t a binary, all or nothing decision. Put it another way, if your flying takes off (ha ha) will you stop writing? If a publisher signs you to a $1m five book deal will you stop flying? I don’t think either of these are likely. It’s a question of proportions of time.
On a positive note, I see you talked in your last post about how you’ve developed as a person these past few years, I think that means you have more of yourself to give to all of these things. It’s not a zero sum game, mayb there’s more of you to go around than there was!
A
I forgot the cats. Skydiving cat videos are all the rage now, Lindsay. Just take ’em up, drop ’em out, dive alongside ’em videoing, and pick ’em up before either they or your plane hit the ground.
The trouble is the whole needing to have a roof over my head and food on my table. If either of my passions were making me any money, it would help…
You’re like the prospector who has spent money and effort getting to the goldfield and buying equipment in the town and is now at the river. But it COULD pan out, to add another metaphor!