I’m sure many of you have heard the phrase “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.” The premise being that if you truly enjoy whatever you do for work, then it’s not hard, it’s not drudgery and therefore it isn’t really work.

When I first started my career in the newspaper industry, I started as a Distribution Manager in the Circulation Department at the Bangor Daily News. I worked with a great group of people from my supervisors, to my co workers to the carriers who got those newspapers delivered every day. The Bangor Daily News in the early 2000’s was a great place! My job required me to be up at 1:30 am some days. Most days my day started at 3:30 am and did not end until at least 3:30 pm or sometimes around 7:30 pm! Sometimes I’d get home just in time to go to bed, snatch a few hours of sleep before getting up and doing it all over again.

Winters were the worst as snowstorms just make everything more difficult. I remember one snowstorm in particular where a couple of the other managers, Richard and Scott, had offered to help me get newspapers delivered because I had several routes that did not have carriers at that moment. I needed the help because it was well over 400 newspapers that needed to be delivered in three different towns! That day the wind was howling, so much so that it was hard to open my car door. It was freezing and the streets were not plowed, not another living soul was out and about. I had already been out for hours delivering newspapers in Bangor and Brewer, before I met up with the guys in Hampden, to divide up what I had left to deliver. Upon pulling into a parking lot and seeing their cars, it was like seeing the calvary, I just started crying. I remember getting out of my car and sobbing “I just can’t do this anymore!” Poor Richard, who at that time was an unmarried bachelor, and Scott who was only 22 and fresh out of college, they had no idea what to do with a hysterically emotional, crying woman! It was a very tough job!

But even with all the difficulties that the job entailed, I loved that job. I loved the excitement of every day being different. I loved the camaraderie amongst all of us. I loved how we worked so well together. I loved all the people I met selling home delivery subscriptions door to door or at trade shows. And believe it or not I actually loved delivering newspapers. The world is a really peaceful place at 3:00 am and it’s a gift to watch the sun rise.

So whenever I heard the phrase “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life” I often thought of my first job at the Bangor Daily News. For me that seemed pretty accurate. That was a tough job but I never once woke up in the morning and dreaded going to work.

Recently I was scrolling through Instagram when I heard an audio that was a different take on this old phrase. It goes like this: “They say if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. But I don’t think that is true at all. If you love what you do you work harder then anyone else. You work nights, weekends. When your friends are at parties you’ll be grinding away because you want to show the world this thing that you love.”

I can see how that applies to my life now! In the past 11 months, since the publication of “The Gathering Room” I have not stopped. Literally, my brain is running 24/7 on ways that I can share this incredible story, this story that I love so much, with as many people as possible!! Yes books sales is one way but selling books isn’t what drives me. It’s not about the money. I speak at book clubs, libraries and at other public events all for free because I just simply want to share this amazing story with the world. Day in and day out. It never stops. I’m working harder now then I have ever worked in my life. And it’s not about the money, it’s about the love for something that I want to share with as many people as I can.

If you remember I said I was “taking time off” to enjoy time with my family in Wyoming. Well maybe I didn’t really take any time off. As noted in last week’s blog post, I tended to be the straggler at the end of the line when we were out hiking. It was on just such a hike, one we did around Taggart Lake, that I again found myself last in line in our group. However, coming up the trail behind me were three young ladies from Baltimore. They were so kind, you know not wanting to pass the old lady huffing and puffing on the trail. So they casually walked with me for a while and we chatted about things. And because I’m always thinking about the book, I somehow turned the conversation to the book and before I knew it all three of them were looking it up on their phones and downloading it on Kindle. Boom! I heard my husband say to my son “She’s selling books back there!” which caused my son’s friend John, who is a mortgage lender, to offer me a job. “Would you like to sell mortgages?” The photo above is of me with the girls at the end of the hike. Three more people, from Maryland, who would not have known about the ghost of Nelly Butler in Maine if they had not traveled to Wyoming! Think about that!

But this ability to be constantly working on what I love was proven even stronger a couple of days later. You see while in Wyoming, and actually the day before the wedding, I managed to break my nose, suffer a severe concussion and ended up enjoying an overnight stay in the ICU at St. John’s Hospital in Jackson Hole Wyoming! Don’t worry I’m fine. But the reason I mention this is because apparently while I was drifting in and out of consciousness in the ICU I was also talking about the book! I have vague memories of asking my husband to get me business cards from my purse so I could hand them out to the medical staff that kept coming in and out of the room! My brain has retained snippets of conversations “I wrote a book.” or “Do you like historical fiction?” “First documented ghost sighting in America. It’s available on Amazon.” I remember hearing my husband laugh and say “she must be fine, she’s selling books!” or my son coming into the room to give me a hug and saying “I hear you are in here selling books.” They tell me I gave the overnight doctor a free book, signed of course, although I don’t remember it! Hope I signed it with my own name!!

And yes, I had taken books to Wyoming! Three of them tucked into my suitcase. Hey you never know when you might need one! Another free book went to the manager, Ann, of the Calico Restaurant in Wilson Wyoming. The rehearsal dinner was held there. Ann had called me to finalize the details of the dinner back in May, on the same day I found out I had won the IPPY Award. She was literally just as excited as I was so I had promised her a free book when I arrived in Wyoming. Sadly I was in the hospital the night of the dinner, so I never got to meet Ann in person, but my family made sure she got the book! I also gave a free book to the sweet make up artist, on the day of the wedding, who miraculously managed to cover up all of my bruises so that I looked somewhat normal. Not sure how we got on the subject of the book, as my memories from that day are somewhat limited, but obviously I was still working it! Still sharing this amazing story with as many people as I can!!!

Because if you love what you do….you may not feel like you are working….but you will work…every day of your life.

Doing it!