Choice…something that you make a conscious decision about, like what color to dye your hair or whether or not you should call in sick.

Non-choice…something that is a fact, something that simply is for you, like you were born a blonde.  Although being born a blonde doesn’t mean you’ll stay one.  ;o)

I’m not sure what got me to thinking about choices.  Could have been an interesting rant post at Vent Club or it might have been something the preacher said yesterday at church.  

We’ll all make choices.  We all have non-choices in our life that sometimes affects these choices. 

We can always use the hair color for an example.  I was born a blonde, hair got darker as I got older and now, somewhere under the red, I think it’s a medium brown.  For some reason, I choose to dye it red.  I like the red.  Red is the choice, brown is the non-choice.  Or I’m debating on whether or not to get Lasix, because I was born with crappy eyesight.  A choice to hopefully repair a non-choice.

Or yesterday was Sunday so I went to church with my kids. That was a choice. I went to church because of a non-choice, my belief in God.  Some people say believing in God is a choice, you can do it, or not do it.  Faith is not really a choice with me.  It simply is.

Writing is another non-choice.  I don’t choose to write.  It’s something I have to do because the stories that play out in my head will drive me batty if I don’t.  I didn’t ask for the stories in my head, not that I’m complaining.  I like them.  They keep me company. The choices I’ve made regarding writing~I chose to make an attempt to get published. I wanted it.  I didn’t have to have it. 

My love for my family is a non-choice.  It simply is.  I love my husband and have for more than half my life.  We made the choice to have kids and share that love.

So why on earth am I writing this rambling post on choices versus non-choices…other than I chose to?  ;o>    I dunno… it could have been that post at Vent Club, an author angry over a perceived lack of interest in help her promote her book or it could be the various complaints we see from authors who aren’t happy with a review, from readers who aren’t happy with the direction a series is going in, or a million other things.  My mind doesn’t exactly work in the linear mode. 

The author at Vent Club, well, she made the choice to pursue publishing. If she banked on one publisher because she had publicity hopes but didn’t actually investigate and/or get in writing how much help she’d have from the publisher, that was a mistake on her part.  There could be a lesson worth learning there could influence future choices. She could start sending out the press kits on her own, contacting magazines, local papers, etc~a practical choice.  Or she could sit and steam.  Another choice.  One of the non-choices here is that authors face a lot of frustrating situations.  Bad covers, poor sales, etc-some things that we can’t really do much about.  So if you’re in a situation you can actually do something about… do it and save the frustation for something else.

With reviews, the author makes the choice to read them.  You don’t like them…don’t read them. The non-choice is here is that you can’t control what somebody else thinks of your book.

With readers unhappy with series, the choice there is to stop buying the series.  You can do other things, complain the author, to the publisher, start flame wars on the author’s message board but in the long run, the only choice you can make is to not buy any more of that series.  The non-choice in this area is that you can’t control how the author writes.  More often than not, the author isn’t in control anyway.  The story is.

So there’s my philosophical thought for the month.