A Thank You.
Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in all the things I want to write about. The ideas could be in my head, on the notes app on my phone, in the journal I always keep in my purse, or the many documents I have started on my laptop. Since I was young, my dream has been the write a novel. I knew I wanted to be a writer but it felt like that specifically, a physical book, is what it would take for me to become one. It didn’t matter that when I told my high school creative writing teacher I wanted to become a writer, she told me I already was one. It didn’t matter that I won a prestigious award for high school writers, beating out students across the country. I would not be a writer until I could hold a book in my hand that had my name on the cover. I’ve started to feel differently over the past few years. Maybe this was not something that was meant for me. I still love writing, I couldn’t imagine ever not loving it, and maybe that was enough.
A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with my best friend, one of those conversations you can only have with someone who has known you for two decades, a conversation that starts as a joke but actually gets at the heart of something serious. Afterwards, I thought I’m going to write about this.
And so I did. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I was writing it earlier but stopped to write this.
That is my novel and I will put my name on it. It may never go anywhere—other than my laptop and the screenshots I send to Erin and Becky like it’s a sitcom they are obligated to tune into every week. It is fiction but it is the best, most heart-wrenching, most authentic thing I have ever written.
I couldn’t have even imagined having the courage or drive to write something I really wanted to, without this little group of people who encourage my writing all the time. Every time one of you reach out to me to say you liked something I wrote, I cry. It really means so much to me. I have been blown away by your support and encouragement. I am going to keep up this newsletter and will maybe share some of my novel(?!) if I get the courage to do so but I wanted to say thank you so, so much and let you know why I haven’t written anything here lately.
But please stay tuned.
xoxo.