Happy Anniversary to Me

Tomorrow is my son's fourteenth birthday. That means I've officially been writing for fourteen years now. Yes, the two are linked.

I'd always wanted to be a writer. I grew up writing plays in elementary school, YA in junior high, and romance novels in high school. See a pattern here? Yes, I wrote what I knew and what interested me. Life, however, got in the way for many years. I never fully gave up the writing dream, but it became a "someday" wish. We all have "someday" wishes. "Someday, I'll go to Paris..." "Someday, I'll buy a new car..." "Someday, I'll be a size six..."

The thing is, "Someday" really never comes. There's only today. So when I found myself bed-confined in the final weeks of pregnancy fourteen years ago, the hubster brought home a computer and told me this was my Someday. Suddenly after years of working full-time, I had an opportunity to do what I always dreamed of: write a novel.

As of this year, I'll have nine books published (so far!). I have three full manuscripts I'm currently shopping around. And the ideas are still coming. Stories are lined up in a giant queue in my head (next to the reminder to do my taxes and my recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip--it's a completely chaotic storage facility in my skull) waiting patiently for their turn to shine.

What's the moral of the story? Don't wait for Someday. No matter what your goal. Start making it a reality now. (And happy birthday, Nicholas B!)