Where I've Been: An Update in Five Paragraphs

As I briefly noted in Tuesday's post, I am mounting a comeback tour for Caroline Wilson Writes. So...where have I been? Well for many of you who have been following me for a few years, you know that my education background is in historic preservation, and for various reasons, I had not been able to pursue that in my day-to-day career. In December 2016, I was finally able to score a job in the field, but this required a move to my old college town of Charleston, SC.

Looking back on my time in the city during college, it was a prolific time of writing. I suppose it had something to do with being surrounded by 300 years of history. I have often mentioned that I struggle with writing. I love to do it but I get burned out easily and often don't have the motivation. It's a sad state of affairs given that I have half a dozen novels in various stages of progress. But in the last few weeks, I've begun to feel an irresistible pull towards researching and continuing on with a novel that I started about a year ago. It is in its very early stages, but I will confess that it will be set in the waning years of Gilded Age New York. More on that in a future post.

Now, how to balance my writing life with my work life. I don't have an answer to this. Being that I am professionally fulfilled for the first time in my working career (sad, I know), I often give all of myself during the day, with little left over in the evenings for writing. Previous to this job, I was often underutilized in my working roles, which left lots of extra time during the day to do what I wanted in terms of writing, researching, or networking online. So going forward, I have to devise a system for balancing everything.

So what am I doing with my days now? Well I work for a consulting firm that specializes in helping developers get federal tax credits for renovating historic buildings. What does that boil down to? I spend a lot of time writing complicated technical documents and reviewing architectural plans. But I do get to travel some and go through some super cool old (and often abandoned) buildings. So far this year, I've been all around South and North Carolina, with trips to Georgia, Florida, Memphis, TN, and Birmingham, AL. I hope to highlight some of my work travels in the blog since they deal with history.

That's all for now. Welcome back everyone and thank you for sitting tight while I spent some time away. I hope to post every Tuesday and Thursday going forward. Tuesdays will be devoted to reviews of historical fiction and sometimes non-fiction, or interesting documentaries or podcasts that I'm digging. Thursdays will be updates for my writing/research endeavors/travels. I'm looking forward to sharing my life and writing aspirations with you once again!