Be Now, Do Now, Live Now

I write for the sheer joy of it [okay, sometimes it’s not all rainbows and baby robins] and because I “have to”. It’s my way to make sense of life, or to at least sort out what God would like to get across to me.

My current projects include seeking agent representation for my recently completed novel. I believe this book could be the first in a three-book standalone series and so jot down bits and pieces as they come to me. I also post once a week on my blog and am in the process of creating new materials for a seven week study group to begin October 2019.

I’ve been writing and reading for as long as I can remember. Given my father didn’t see much value in sitting in front of television set, we didn’t own one. Which meant when mom took my younger sister and me with her on errands to our nearby small town every Saturday morning, we’d make sure to stop at the library and stagger out with all the books each of us could carry.

In high school I dreamed of being a best-selling author. Of just about anything. Books. Plays. Tomes of erudite self-help instruction. On a few occasions it may have been better to ignore the urge to be creative, vis-à-vis passing notes in class. Ah, the innocence and plans of youth.

Nevertheless, I was a teenager when my first article was published. For a few bucks, no less. When I told my angel-in-disguise Business teacher she smiled, and in her light, sweet, southern drawl, encouraged me to keep at it.

That larger than life vision was put on the back burner for the next number of years, however, I soon discovered writing could take many forms. I spent a few years as a copywriter and voice-over talent for a couple of radio stations and then worked for a local manufacturer writing direct mail ad copy and newsletters. [Yep, giving away my age but that was back in the day when all that happened with electric typewriters and snail mail.]

Later on my work as a child and family advocate led to grant writing and the opportunity to exercise those skills in numerous situations, both paid and volunteer. All well and good. Until I had to unlearn years later that not every paragraph of every manuscript—unless for the sole purpose of a government document—need include every single word in my vast repertoire.

Eighteen months after I left the paid not for profit sector in the late ‘90s, I had my first play published. Okay, that took a little longer than miss bright-eyed teenager had planned, yet it seemed no less than a clear confirmation from God to stay the course.

The path then took a different turn. I began to create materials and facilitate retreats for the not for profit my beloved and I founded in 2003. Which led to the development of a number of study series for those who desired to learn and grow in greater knowledge and understanding of God and themselves.

Amid these writing activities I was accepted into an intensive two-year program to receive my certification in spiritual direction. To the good-natured amusement of some of my classmates, I thoroughly loved writing the numerous required papers. Soon after, I began my first blog in 201l.

The mountaintops and valleys of a life lived these many years have opened the heart of and soul of that all-grown-up-now-gray teenager to ideas and experiences she could never have imagined. Maybe that’s because she realizes, after all this time, the most meaningful lesson she has learned is to allow the Divine to write on her heart, and that she has only one real responsibility—use the gift she has been given and do the best she can each day, one word and one step at a time.