{"id":572,"date":"2012-04-18T09:59:03","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T09:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2012\/04\/18\/lppost\/"},"modified":"2012-04-18T09:59:03","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T09:59:03","slug":"lppost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/lppost\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: The Meaning of Life and Other Minutia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"leah_and_me\"42.<\/span><\/p>\n

<Scanning the comments for people who got the reference.><\/span><\/p>\n

OK, silliness aside, it\u2019s a good thing to ponder. It\u2019s a thing I doubt anyone will ever NOT ponder. Isn\u2019t that what religion, science, and philosophy have been about for the last however long it\u2019s been since mankind first had a rational thought in its collective head? (Though there remains some doubt as to whether this has truly ever happened or not.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to present you with an answer here. But I\u2019ve been musings on the subject recently as the release of my debut novel, FIGHTING GRAVITY got closer and closer.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was never a terribly ambitious person. I liked life and I was relatively good at it, so I just enjoyed it as it came and didn\u2019t put much thought into why. I had things and people that were important to me, sure. But beyond getting married and having kids, my life goals pretty much amounted to maintaining the status quo and being happy along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being a published author wasn\u2019t even a consideration. I wrote, but only because I liked doing it. I didn\u2019t share it with anyone else.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until I did. Somewhere along the way, a few years ago, I discovered that I had a story that I really wanted to share with others. I wanted them to read it and be as excited about it as I had been while creating it. The way to achieve this was to get it published. So with that in mind, I started the research and the work that brought me here, to the release of my first book. I don\u2019t regret this at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s made me think about all that time I was happy enough without this in my life, and how important it\u2019s become to me now. How it drives my feelings of success and failure as I hit the ups and downs of this journey. And the huge buildup of anticipation leading to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it, ultimately, is going to be a big letdown soon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"FG-cover-latest-663x1024\"Let\u2019s face it, after all the work you put in and all the anticipation of your first book launch, it\u2019s simply got<\/i> to be a letdown when the high passes, whether your expectations were met or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

(This may not be true for people who hit the bestseller list on day one. I don\u2019t ever expect to be in a position to speak from experience on that.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m bracing myself for the fall. I\u2019m not complaining, I\u2019m just trying to be prepared. But it\u2019s making me philosophical, not just about my writing career, but about everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the point of it all? What does it mean? What\u2019s it for? And why do I use so many parentheses?<\/span><\/p>\n

I may never know. But 42 is a good enough answer for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can find Leah online at http:www.leahpetersen.com<\/a>, on Twitter at @leahpetersen<\/a> or pickup her first book, Fighting Gravity<\/em> at AMAZON<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

42. <Scanning the comments for people who got the reference.> OK, silliness aside, it\u2019s a good thing to ponder. It\u2019s a thing I doubt anyone will ever NOT ponder. Isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c40-myblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}