A new room of my own…

Welcome back. I say this to you, and to myself, as I continue with the new.

For those of you who read or followed my first blog, I thank you.  For those who are visiting for this blog for the first time, welcome.  I’m no where near an expert on web design, but I think this blog looks pretty cool for graphics that came together kind of by accident. Trust me, it took 5 hours to chance upon the unexpected, finished result. 

I started my first blog simply because I was told that’s what a writer does in the 21st century.  I was seriously resistant at first, but then, if anything, it kept me writing, and to my surprise, people kept reading. As of last week, to the tune of almost over 900 views. Not bad for my first time.  People read even though I was elsewhere.    

Life happened, I moved, and I stopped writing the blog.  Unlike fiction, the calling that seems to capture me, and hold me still, despite life’s tugging and whirling, writing the blog didn’t have that power to keep me. As I got space from it, I felt my blog writing was random, routine, and lacked depth. The experience of writing has never been that for me, and it took several months for me to realize that a return to sharing my writing journey had to have the same qualities that keeps me writing—inspiration, discovery, focus, and direction. 

During the last several months, I’ve had a chance to really sit with how to move forward as I start my writing career.  I graduated school right when the economy tanked.  The few agents I did query, with the exception of one, wrote back that they didn’t have time to look at my submissions due to the incoming volume.  A few publishing houses closed altogether. One agent actually liked my story, but stated she wasn’t sure how to market my novel.  Even though I only queried a few, my energy was drained with the worry of establishing my life as a new college grad in a very different world than before I went to college. It wasn’t the world writer John Gardner advised to get the teaching job with the Master’s degree, the guaranteed paycheck, to support the new writer. This was a world where I had to knock on 50 doors just to get an interview, and 50 more just to get, not a teaching job, but an office job.  This was the world I focused on, and for a short while, I stepped away from the writing.  But not for long…

Since graduation, I’ve had to recover, recalibrate, reorient, and now, re-invent my path as a writer.  I’ve learned the road is one you pave, and if you’re skillful, extra hands will help with the paving, and even help to clear the way. 

Next month, my second written novel will be published.  Tomorrow, the writing here will be the first of many days that will chronicle this endeavor. Some may think I’m crazy, which I won’t deny. Others will and still find me the adventurer. No argument there either.  I had always hoped that my writing would inspire.  Now, I see, it is the journey of the writer that also inspires.