All my life, I’ve wanted to be a writer. Oh, I did go through phases of wanting to be a nurse or an airline stewardess but deep down in the depths of my heart, I knew that not only did I want to be a writer, I was a writer. I knew it. The trouble was getting others to know it. Through the years, as I went to school, got my degrees, taught school, became a mom, in spare moments, I wrote. I well remember the first time a publisher paid me for my work. The monetary reward was very little but I felt like I had climbed Mt. Everest and planted a flag at the top! My feet barely touched the ground for at least a week. Somebody else liked what I had written enough to print it in his magazine and send me some money for my effort. Amazing!
Through the years, I made sales to many publications. I don’t say that braggingly; I say it humbly because for every acceptance check, there were many more rejection letters. I kept writing and kept sending to publications because my dream, my aching ambition was to be recognized as a writer. Didn’t those publishers understand? Couldn’t they see that rejection slips were like cold water flung onto my eager face?
Of course, I dreamed about writing a book but a book contains so many, many words. How long would writing a book take? Months? Years? At last, I decided, since I wasn’t getting any younger, if I ever authored a book, I’d better get with it. A dear friend, Levern Jones, introduced me to Barbara Burgess, another writer. “You know,” I told Barbara one day in a tea room in Rogers, “we could collaborate on a book. I have this idea centered in Oklahoma, about a secret cache of gold and how it got there.” So, Barbara and I worked, writing chapters, discussing them, sending them back and forth to each other’s computers via email and at last, The Cemetery Club was born, published, and readers liked it. It came to life as a cozy mystery. It involved an investigative reporter and her mom and it took place in a small town, Levi, Oklahoma. Barbara and I got pretty interested in Darcy and Flora, our protagonists and felt we didn’t want to leave them after only one book, so two more came along, Grave Shift and Best Left Buried, the final book in the Darcy/Flora trilogy. Best Left Buried, by the way, is set to be released some time this year.
OK, I’ve achieved my dream. Right? So now, I can stop, fold my hands, and complacently sit in my rocker beside the fireplace for the rest of my allotted time. But, no! I can’t do that any more than I can stop being me. I keep writing. My next book, Moonlight Can Be Murder, will, one day soon, be completed and ready to make its debut.
I say all this just to make the point that it took a good many years for me to realize my dream of becoming an author. I must have been born a writer, but finally, I am a published author. The feeling is like the first time a publisher accepted my poem and paid me for it. I feel elated, humbled, and encouraged. Writing is hard. It can be heartbreaking, frustrating, and–did I mention that it is hard? But it is also rewarding and fulfilling and a whole lot of fun.
Maybe your dream isn’t to become an author. Maybe it’s something else–something deep within that longs to see the light of day, the real you! I encourage you not to give up on dreams. Dreams are terribly important. Keep believing in them until they become reality. You’ll be glad you did.
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