The last couple of weeks have been tumultuous. To explain a little, I work a forty hour a week job, volunteer in the community and currently work on three story lines. This is my life and one I enjoy. What made the last couple of weeks different from the norm, is that a position once more became available at my day job. It is a management position. This, over the years, is something that I have always aspired to. I believe that is the main reason I have turned to my writing, at least writing books. Let me make this clear, I have always been a writer. There has not been a time when I have not written fiction, but this evolved in 2006.
In this year I was working for a family company. As with other jobs in the past there was something missing. It could simply have been that I was not growing and build something that would continue then and in the future. In that year I was reading a book by Jack Canfield, “How to Get from Here to Where You Want To Be”. I had just completed the chapter that asked, “If you can do anything, anything at all what would it be?”According to Mr. Canfield, I was not to worry about bills, rent/mortgage or any financial commitments. Without even a consciousness effort, I realized I would write.
That evening I attended a “Dream Circle”. That is a gather of dreamers who sit in a circle and share one of their aspirations. More than that, it is important to commit to that aspiration, dream. After my friend Joy went around the circle and asked each one present what they had done the previous week to follow through, she turned to me.
When she asked, “Would you be willing to share one of your dreams with us?”
I knew what it would be. I would write. What followed next started me on the road to write my first book. When I said I would write, my friend asked me to make three commitments to that dream. I did. One of the commitments was to go to the Maui Writers Conference. At first I wasn’t truly committed to follow through,but events carried me along.
I have attended many writers’ conferences since then, and polished my book as I have gone along. Thanks to another friend I also started a writers’/critique group. At many of these conferences I have pitched my book. To date I have not received an offer of representation, but I continue on. This October, I will attend the Surrey International Writers Conference, in Surrey British Columbia. The agent I pitch to this year is one I have pitched to before. More than that I will enjoy workshops with agents and published authors. I truly hope this is my year, but one thing above all others I have learned from my experiences is that I am a writer. It is more than a dream, it is a fact of my life.