If you subscribe to my blog, thank you. Thank you for reading my thoughts and following my writing journey.

I hadn’t posted anything in a while, until today. I was updating and tinkering with my website, and I inadvertently reposted an old blog entry that, if you read it for the first time, may have seemed out of place given its references to the last Presidential election. I caught the error, but I couldn’t undo it, so I just had to let it go.

That happens in life. We make mistakes, things we wish we could undo, things we wish we could unsay or unwrite. But we can’t. So we just have to roll with it. And try to move on, try to make things better. That’s all we can do. Because our mistakes are only part of a much longer story. They don’t define who we are — unless we let them.

I’m starting a new page, putting my passion and energy into something new. I don’t know how it will go, but I’m giving it a try. Because that’s all I can do. Sometimes we just have to take things as they come and do the best we can to be the best we can be. It’s a work in progress, like life. Bear with me as I reconstruct my website and turn the pages of the next chapter.

Thank you. Thank you for seeing beyond the stumbles and missteps. Thank you for believing in me.

Sometimes we call our manuscripts our babies. The works in progress we’ve been pecking away at for more than a decade. The novel we’ve spent years trying to perfect, preparing to send out into the world for others to see.

Recently, I finished the novel that began as a tiny infant, just a glimmer of hope with an infinitesimally small idea of what would come of her. I sent her off to publishers, not really sure what would happen next, with excitement and much anticipation for the future, a little bit of dread that I didn’t get it right, didn’t do enough to make sure it was ready, and sadness, that those chapters are done, never to be written or even rewritten again.

And yesterday, I sent my real baby off to college. My tiny infant has become a full-fledged adult being, though still awaiting some fine-tuning as the time marches on, but as prepared as she can be for the next step.

In a lot of ways these babies are similar. Sending our writing babies off into the next phase of their lives is a lot like sending our children off to college. I wake up in the middle of the early morning, before the sun comes up, and I start to worry. Did I do everything I could to prepare her? Should I move things around? Should I change things up? Should I revisit our conversation? I worried. I worried that things were going in the wrong direction, that I’d messed up, that I couldn’t fix her problems, no matter how hard I tried. Over the years, I woke up many times imagining dialogue and scenes in the darkness. It never went quite the same as I practiced in my head, but most of the time it turned out much better than I thought it would. 

In my heart, I know that I did everything I could to help make my baby become the best she can be. I read books. I took her outside to explore. I brought her on adventures. I nurtured her. I made mistakes and learned from them. I did better the next time. I added color and texture to her experiences. And even when I had my doubts, even when I worried that she might not turn out exactly the way I envisioned, I loved her the whole way and knew she was the best thing I’d ever created.

I’m sad that this book is closed, that I can’t go back and relive the pages of this story anymore. But as hard as it is, I know that it’s time to move on to something different, something new.

I’m excited for that. I’m looking forward to whatever comes next. And I really have no idea what will happen. Will there be rejection? Will there be heartache? Will the things I thought were done still need more work? Will she find where she belongs? Will she be accepted right away? Will she change for the better? I’m sure there will be many surprises along the way, both good and bad. That’s scary, but it’s thrilling, and I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

They’re very different too. Sending my baby off to college is not at all like sending my manuscript out for publishers to see. She’s a piece of my heart that is irreplaceable. I begin writing my next story, and my thoughts turn to this new character, with his own struggles and desires. I wake up thinking of ways to make his story better, and I’ve all but forgotten about the last story I wrote. It doesn’t work that way in real life. I have two other works in progress at home, with worries and desires of their own, but we don’t move on so easily to the next thing without still wishing she was part of it. She is, but her role is different now. It’s written in text messages and appears on phone screens. In some ways, we now get to see a part of her that we never knew before, the part with her own big stories to tell, with her own plot to create, with rises and falls and a happy ending – and many new beginnings – we couldn’t begin to predict. Now she’s a little more on her own, where she depends on new people to help her become the very best version of herself, but she’s still my baby. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

I recently enrolled at Southern New Hampshire University (online) to pursue a Master’s in English and Creative Writing. In my first course, Studying the Craft, I’ve already learned so much, and for someone like me, it has been a lot of fun!

For a recent assignment, I was given the task of selecting any five words from a contemporary text, and then using them in a short work that showcases my style. Before now, I never knew I had a style! But when I sat down to write this piece, I realized that I do. Even though I borrowed individual words from another writer, these words are all me.

We ascend the trail in silence. I find comfort in the cadence of our footsteps. His jaunt a lilting quick-step, slightly ahead. And I struggle to keep pace.

I didn’t sleep well. Awoken with a sudden flash of all things unspoken, all tasks undone. My backwards count, cascading into a restful state only to be jolted alert again. 

It seems too early now to be outside. The sun still lingers behind gray and violet mountaintops. But we continue on, leaves crinkling beneath our feet. A crow recites soliloquies from its lookout above our heads. I fixate on the caw. A harsh but friendly greeting. 

He stops, turning back, asking if we should trek on. 

“Go,” I reply, like a crow.

He picks up the pace, and I lumber along, my thoughts returning to today’s to-dos. 

As we reach the pinnacle, the sun, ringed with wisps of yellow clouds, raises its crown above the majestic peaks. I am awakened, uplifted. I breathe in the morning.

He peers at me, watching as I take in the view, and I wonder what he’s thinking. But I begin our descent without a word. He follows after me, traipsing at my heels.

We step inside. His energy has drained into me. I am ready to work, charged, my laptop open. He is asleep in seconds, head on my hip, the scent of earth emanating from his fur.

I love to write about peaceful settings, and I do my best thinking when I’m out on the trail with my dog, so there’s nothing that could highlight who I am as a writer more than this. The simple sentence structures in this piece are typical of my writing style. I also tend to use “cascading” sentences with commas linking together subsequent phrases. And I commonly use sentence fragments to emphasize ideas. I write with imagery (sometimes overdoing it) to create a feeling or scene, but I also like to leave things for the reader to infer.

This piece is so me that my youngest daughter thought it was a repeat of something I’d written before. No. This is all new — in the style of me.

Sometimes when I read another’s poem and then I read my own, I think that my writing is too simple, too obvious. I think that I shouldn’t waste my $20 to enter a contest that I’m probably going to lose anyway because my writing isn’t deep enough, or it’s too concrete. It’s not award-worthy.

But then I think about my cousin who wrote a happy ending into his play because he didn’t like the way another story ended, and I realize that there are people like me who appreciate the simple things in life and root for happy endings too. It doesn’t need to be so complicated.

Sometimes when I read another’s writing, I think that maybe I can do that too, but why didn’t I think of that? Why don’t I have any great ideas?

But then I step outside and walk in the woods, and the words just come. And I write who I am.

I share my poem with my friends and family. They are touched by my words and moved to tears. I am rewarded with their thanks and praise. And it fills me up and gives me the courage to keep writing.

And then I pay the $20 and see what happens.

I wrote a novel! Yes, finally, it’s finished.

I didn’t feel quite as happy and accomplished as I thought I would. I thought I’d burst with excitement. I thought I would leap in celebration. It was rather anticlimactic actually. It was almost as quiet and peaceful as the announcement of the Presidential election winner, which happened while I was in the basement, finishing my novel. I got a text message that there was an officially projected winner, and it didn’t seem quite real, somewhat like writing the last sentence of my novel.

It’s still not done, which I suppose is why I didn’t hoot and holler. And I didn’t see any confetti when I tuned in to CNN. I think it was more of a catching of breath, a relief — and disbelief. Could it really be true? I went to bed four years ago before the election results were tallied. When I woke up, I hoped I was dreaming. This time, I was afraid it was only a dream. But it really is true — it has come to an end!

And the chances of the decision being overturned are far, far less than the probability that my book will one day make it to publication — I hope. In this transition time, there is much to do. As I revise my work, the task of finding a publisher continues in earnest. And one thing is certain — I will not concede until I see my book in print.

That will be my inauguration day. To be sure, I will dance and sing in celebration!

I started writing a novel about 12 years ago. It was an assignment for a second correspondence course I was taking through the Institute of Children’s Literature. I had three young daughters, a new teaching job, and dwindling confidence in my writing future. So, I took a break, from the course and from writing the novel.

But I never really closed the book on that story. It remained on my mind over the last decade, and I always wanted to finish it. I knew I would never fully commit to writing anything else until that story was complete.

Over the years, I worked on my manuscript a little bit here and there. I took part in a National Novel Writing Month “Camp” to help give me the push I needed to keep going. I read my story aloud to my students with the hope that they would motivate me to continue working and remind me that it was worth writing. They did. But I still couldn’t seem to get beyond a certain point. I was just tweaking the words and spinning my wheels, unable to go forward.

Then the stay-at-home order took effect. There were less goings on and less going places, so despite the busyness of remote teaching, I had more time to write and a renewed desire to be creative.

It wasn’t so much the having more time or even making time. It was about taking it. I saw the quarantime as an opportunity to truly prioritize the things that I wanted to accomplish. And to ensure that when life got back to normal, I would look back on this time and feel that I’d made the most of it.

So, I reenrolled in the course, determined to finish what I’d started. And literally, I picked up where I left off. I revised the writing I’d done so far and sent in my assignment — the first four chapters of my middle grade novel. Instead of just stealing moments here and there, I started taking advantage of the time that I had, with nowhere to go, and allowed myself to make writing a priority.

During my hiatus from the course, I still wanted to pursue my writing dreams, but I had let the doubts seep in. I didn’t believe I had enough creative and interesting ideas to truly sustain the life of a writer. But I’d always heard that the more one writes, the better the ideas flow. And now I know that is entirely true. Allowing myself more time to write has sparked an idea generator within me I’d forgotten existed.

What is as powerful as time, though, is timing. If I had finished my novel back then, it would not have been what it is now and what it will be when it is finished. The bones of it are the same, but the meat, the story, its characters, even the length of it, are not what they once were nor would have been. (When I first started writing it, my character, who was trying to track someone down, used a phone book!) The path I’ve taken to get to this point, where I am in my life right now, what I’ve experienced with my students and my own daughters, what I’ve read, and what I’ve learned as a writer — all of it changes the story. And the timing makes it better.

I’ve dreamed of being a writer all my life. Now, finally, I take the time to make it happen. And there is no better time.