Life and Choices… thoughts Carmel Rowley

I’m always fascinated by my own as well as other peoples life choices – even more so at present as ‘choice’ is a theme that runs through Book 3 in my’ Daughters of the Wind’ series. Whether you’re breeding Arabian horses, writing a novel or simply living day to day, life is all about the choices we make. I know in the first two books in the ‘Daughters of the Wind’ series my characters did not always make the wisest choices. In book three, choices are again an issue, which got me thinking…

I can only speak about the roads I’ve travelled. And let me tell you, there have been plenty of crossroads, where I’ve had to stop and make a decision about which way to turn. Naturally there were never any guarantees that my choices were the right ones, though with everything I do, I always put  LOTS and LOTS of background reading, observing and research into trying to make the right decision.

This is especially true with two of the major roads I’ve travelled, the ones that set me my greatest challenges. These challenges were/are breeding Arabian horses, writing and more recently publishing my novels.

As a writer and probably an interested bystander I often wonder why so many people have such unrealistic expectations about the life journey they undertake. Do they listen to the wrong people? Do they not notice the attrition rate? It seems every day in both publishing and breeding, people are worn out by their goals not reaching expectations. I guess this is why it’s so important to take the time to learn for ones self.

In all my years of breeding horses I’ve seen an uncountable number of people who have come and gone. Their reasons , well, they would probably fill a book and all I can say is -that’s another story and maybe I’ll write the book!

But seriously, one thing I would like to say is – when people make their own choices – they should also take responsibility for those choices. I now realise the publishing industry isn’t really so very different to the horse industry. It’s still mind-blowing competitive! For example, when you consult Nielsen BookScan (Nielsen BookScan is the international sales data monitoring and analysis service for the English-language book industry worldwide. www.nielsonbookscan.com.au ) In a typical week BookScan Australia collects over 60,000 different titles that represent more than $14 million from over 1000 retailers! It’s a heck of a lot of books.

So when I jumped in and made the choice to be the independent/self publisher of my books it was just as scary or maybe scarier than buying my first horse! And even after all my self publishing research I still felt as if I was thrown to the sharks! But at least I did make a decision and I took full responsibility for the outcome.

Two years into my publishing journey  sees me still learning, so much so that my brain often goes into overload forcing me to stop and and take a little break! It goes to prove, breeding horses, as with self publishing and writing, one never stops learning, you just keep evolving.

So whether it’s about breeding horses or writing/publishing books the best idea is to make informed choices even if it takes a little longer to achieve your goal. But when it all boils down to it, we travel along the road of life not expecting to always cruise a highway, sometimes the road is full of potholes and sometimes it’s uphill climbs with no passing lanes. There may be roads to defeat and disappointment, but if you work towards informed choices, take responsibility for your choices and learn a little as you ponder your decisions there are just as many roads to happiness and success.