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In line with my renewed commitment to resurrect my writing, I took PTO and drove myself to Austin this weekend for the 2024 Agents & Editors Conference. I am proud to report that I have come a long way since the last time I attended a writing conference and spent much of the time holed up in my hotel room alone and blaming my introverted nature. My favorite part of this conference, so far, has been the opportunity to meet writers of all genres, listen to their stories, and exchange ideas about the business and the craft. During Friday night's reception, I sat at a table with a writer of early middle grades fiction, a writer of new adult fantasy, and a writer of futuristic YA. And while I don't tend to gravitate toward any of those genres, I found myself inspired by their pitches, their energy and their courage. This morning, I waited in a quiet room employing every breathing technique I've learned in therapy over the past six years to help combat the anxiety I felt about pitching a half-baked idea to a well-known and widely respected literary agent. Former me would have bowed out, but I stayed the course, and guess what. The agent did not request to see any of my materials, but I also didn't expire on the spot from anxiety. We had a conversation about the idea, she offered feedback that helped me gain some clarity, and I left the room with a sense of peace that I had taken the next right step. During the keynote luncheon, I sat next to a genetic scientist and found myself fascinated by the topic he was planning to pitch to an agent. Later, while waiting for a session to begin, I befriended a fellow adjunct English professor and exchanged strategies for combatting AI in the world of academia. And during the evening reception, I met a 70-year-old not-yet-published writer who had pitched her women's fiction book idea to an agent that morning and had received a request for her full manuscript. [Side note: she is heading out to the Camino de Santiago in a few weeks, a pilgrimage hike that rather recently made it onto my list of Things I Really Want to Do.] I am finding a common thread in every conversation: these are writers honoring their passion for writing through consistent work and with no guarantee of "success" (aka, publication). But they have hope, and that hope is contagious. So, it seems to me that investing time in the writing community is going to continue to be an important part of this journey I'm on. Since I began pitching poems and personal essays at the age of 12 to a long list of magazines I'd highlighted in a fat paperback 1991 version of Writer's Market, writing has always been a dream. Except now I know better. Writing is quite simply part of who I am, and I'm finally embracing that.

My writing stalls quite often for one pathetic reason: I can't guarantee the end result. I am never short on ideas. Quite the opposite: they swarm so furiously through my mind, I am paralyzed by indecision. Before I focus in on one idea, I want to know if the time spent will be worth the effort. I want to know what the end result will be. Funny, but I would never skip to the end of, say, a book I'm reading. Regardless of whether I am worried or excited about the ending, I want to immerse myself in the journey from start to finish. Not so when I write. I would prefer to skip over uncertainty, fear, and trial and error. I want to skip the possibility of failure, embarrassment, oversharing. I want to skip to the good parts, skip to the known results, skip to the happy ending. But as a writer, what would that happy ending look like? Maybe I've been looking at success through the too-narrow lens of publication. Maybe success doesn't depend on whether I ever sign another publishing contract or whether I ever sell another freelance piece. Maybe success is taking new steps toward my dreams every day and enjoying the process of learning and creating and growing. After all, every worldly success brings a brief celebration, followed by a new longing for the next achievement--a recurring longing that drains creativity and squashes joy. So, maybe I don't want to skip to the end. Maybe it's time to write like I read: with curiosity, expectant hope, and the belief that skipping to the end would spoil the best parts of the story.

You know when you really want to do something, but there are a million reasons why you can't? I'm not talking about really wanting to win the lottery or really wanting to travel the world for a year. I'm talking about that something that you absolutely love, that something that is a part of your soul...and you don't do it anymore. Maybe you used to run five miles every day or hit the gym before work. Or maybe you used to play the piano, the guitar, the violin. You used to experiment with new recipes or bake from-scratch pastries. You used to spend hours at a time with paint on a canvas, or boots on a hiking trail, or words on a page. You volunteered at an animal shelter, a food bank, a church. Maybe you sewed or created jewelry or dove into home improvement projects. But somewhere along the way, you stopped. Your season changed, and now there's no time, or no money, or you honestly just don't have the energy. It doesn't seem practical, and perhaps you started to believe it's a little bit selfish. Plus, you haven't done it in so long, you'll probably be terrible at it. What if you chose to stop believing all these self-limiting lies? Last year, I decided to stop believing those lies and invest in a part of myself that had gone dormant: writing. I figured the best way to start was to get back to reading again. But money was tight, and the local library wasn't super convenient--both reasons which have kept me from reading many new books over the years. Two solutions: 1. the Libby app to download free books, and 2. the Goodreads app to set goals and keep track. The next practical step (aside from actually sitting down to write because I was clearly procrastinating and fearful of what it would mean to actually invest in this part of myself) was to join writing communities. Again, money was a barrier. Two years out from my divorce as a single mom with four kids--and just reentering the workforce after many years away--every dollar had a job, and none of those jobs included paying writing club membership dues. Determined, I researched and identified the three organizations I wanted to start with: The Writers' League of Texas, WriteSpace Houston, and Romance Writers of America. I cut corners on groceries for a few weeks to manage the lesser expenses of two of those memberships. For one, I inquired as to a scholarship and was graciously awarded a one-year membership. Here and there, I have scrounged up money for a class, or attended a free workshop (or was granted a scholarship). And, I began to write--but differently this time. Exploratory writing, with no publication goals, no self-imposed deadlines, no expectations. I'm still in this phase of finding myself again as a writer. So far, I've experimented with two lukewarm Love Inspired Suspense stories, a messy memoir, a revival of an old dual timeline novel, a dramatic and heartwarming women's fiction story, and at least a dozen half-baked freelance pitches. Progress is slow. And I can blame that on a lot of things: working full time, parenting, managing a household, and also working part-time as an adjunct English professor does not leave much free time. Excuses, excuses. The true culprit, if I'm honest, is self-doubt. I'll be turning 45 next month, and I'm thinking it's past time to embrace this writing journey, come what may. I'll be writing about that here.