There are only a handful of moments in life that define you, that you remember vividly years later. When you say, “Yep, that was when it happened.”  One of those moments came when I finally decided to take a writing class from Margie Lawson.

I had first heard about her on the RWA Yahoo loops I’d been using for critique, in a comment directed at another author.  “You would benefit from a Margie Lawson class.” Which broke down into a discussion of who Margie was and what she did, which disintegrated into a love fest.  It was the kind of devotion I’d only seen before in religious zealots or newly, reformed ex-smokers.

Curious, I looked up her stuff online.  She wasn’t writer turned teacher but a psychologist turned writing teacher which intrigued me more.  After watching Margie’s graduate blog post, the number of published author who listed her as a mentor, the boatload of contest winners who gave her credit, the crazy amount of NYT best sellers who used her techniques, drew me to explore farther. I circled her online for months not wanting to commit cash (wasting money to me is akin to spilling life’ s blood, so I hesitated).  I scoured the internet for references and found pages,  upon pages of glittering recommendations.

I finally caved and tried the first class.  In that moment, I knew. This is what my writing was missing. (I also met the one and only, super awesome Tina Gower in that class but that’s another story).

Some of the techniques where things I’d never heard of or tried, some I was familiar with, but the key for my learning was the assessable way the ideas were presented with examples. When I applied the ideas to my work the results proved astounding. Critique groups gave me positive feedback. I finaled in my first contest.  I saw, at last, what was wrong with my writing, and used Margie’s toolbox to fit the problems.  I was hooked.

And like a good junkie, I soon soaked up every class she had to offer except the big one—Immersion. This is the mecca of Margie’s classes which she usually teaches in her Colorado mountain home.  I worked my budget, I tried to find transportation, I crunched the numbers and considered not eating for a few weeks in order to subsidize, but I could find no way to get to the mountain.

One night I was stalking the Immersion page on Margie’s site, trying to come up a with a plan, and some magic happened.  Margie was scheduled to do Immersions offsite and one happened to be in Ohio within easy driving distance.  After doing a long and enthusiastic Snoopy happy dance across my living room, I claimed a spot and waited, edited, and reviewed my material.  That was five months ago.  I go to the Immersion in less a week and I’m beyond excited and open and willing to absorb all the great teaching she can impart during my four days.  I am not only geeked to see Margie but to meet my classmates who must be equally obsessed with perfecting their writing and perusing a writing career.

I feel this conference will be another huge step into the direction of publication, whether it be with a trad publisher or indie.  I know with a fabulous mentor and wonderful support, this will be one of those moments that I look back on in ten years and say. Yes, that was it. The moment that changed it all.  I will be reporting back with an afterglow blog post.

Please comment if you have had an aha moment in writing or life, a positive turning point, or just say hello.

I have been trying to do this blog post for a couple of weeks now. Faith. Good subject for writers. We all got to have it.  But where does it come from and how do we harness it.  In Steve Pressfield’s War of Art, he discusses how difficult it is to show up to the artistic battlefield every day.  He says that Resistance (capital R) is a force, an entity, that works against us, and we must fight back.

You will find a thousand, thousand reasons not to show up to the field.  Your kid is sick, your job is overwhelming, the dishes must be done, the cat just threw up on your feet, and unless you find that compelling reason to ignore the horde of distractions, you won’t sit down and do it.  The little voice tells you: give up, give in, it’s too hard.  No one will read your tripe anyway.  Why are you wasting time?

But that is your first clue. When this little voice makes some noise you know you are following your soul’s purpose, cause Resistance doesn’t push back unless you are about to break through to do something original, unique, maybe even dangerous. You are about to put your heart and soul out into the world for people to judge.

If you can get through Resistance, if you can have faith and write, you have already succeeded.  In moving forward and in creating, you conquer your fear and realize in the end the only judge that matters is you.

I judge myself more harshly for giving up than I ever will for trying.  So get out there, beat Resistance with a wire coat hanger and try having a bit’o faith.  That’s what I’m doing.

Dear Husband,

It’s Friday and you’ve left for deer hunting. The children and I shall live like college students by staying in our pjs all day–eat pizza, tacos, pancakes, sometimes all three at once—We might even drag a couch out to the lawn and listen to Frozen music. The sound dial will be turned to eleven.

But really the biggest travesty that will occur is our Saturday ritual of Outlander. I know it’s our “thing”—we read all the books and we nerd out on long discussions over character motivations and how tempted we were to skim the parts where Claire is testing her mold samples.

I had no idea that the wedding episode would fall on the one weekend a year you have dedicated to being manly. But I am weak and I cannot wait for you.

I’m going to watch this episode without you.

Seriously? I know you will also miss Dr. Who and I can wait for that. We started getting into Downton Abbey and I can wait for that. Except my strength of will is tested with Outlander.

So consider this your notice (even though you’re on the mountainside right now with no internet connection, so you won’t know until you get back…but I can pretend I didn’t see it while I watch it for what will likely be the fifth time). I promise to have more strength in the future (as long as it doesn’t include things I cannot resist: Chocolate, index cards, retractable highlighters, and Outlander…this is not an exhaustive list, just a sample).

Yours truly,

Wife

In 2005, I decided I wanted to see the ocean. After years of bad relationships and bad jobs and bad decisions, visiting the coast became a mecca for me, an escape, a quest for a holy grail that would reboot my life.  Changing my attitude by changing my latitude, as the old saying goes.

Problem was, I had no idea how to get there, and I am absolutely horrible with directions. I find reading maps challenging (I can refold them like nobody’s business though).  To put this in perspective, I’ve gotten lost driving to places I’ve been before, in straight lines, even in parking lots.  So, when I embarked on this trip on a spur of the moment, with no planning, in the days before GPS, I had a great deal of trepidation.

I ventured out on the dark turnpike, looking for signs that read south and east, occasionally

Ignore my hair!!

stopping for advice at gas stations and asking friendly looking pedestrians for directions. One elderly, sagelike, African-American gentleman, named Elvis, told me I was on the right track, “to just keep a’goin’ straight on through” (not as turn-by-turn as I would have hoped) but the saying became my trip mantra.  I ventured into a couple of sidetracked paths( Welcome to Maryland!)  until I reached my destination of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

I felt lost 98% of the time.  Caffeine, my Sheryl Crow CD, and my two headlights, were the only things keeping me awake and on the road as I drove all night.  A strange combination of excitement, determination, panic, fear and hope drove me to continue until I eventually found my ocean.  And it was worth all the stress when I walked barefoot on the empty beach with dolphins playing in the surf. I had grabbed my grail.  I had found my zen.

Lately, I have been plagued with a similar feeling of panic.  So many sources of information from friends, to internet gurus, to teachers, to social media proclaim different methods to reach the holy grail of publication, and not just publication, but publishing with an audience.

Traditionalist still hold firm that the old school Big 5 is the only way to get noticed, and if the writer hasn’t been picked up by them then the author obviously needs to work on their craft until they are good enough for an agent and a big deal with a publisher.

Indies advocates show me a golden road of freedom, more money, more immediate results. Many say that the big publishers are scrambling to just stay alive and are only contracting sure bets.  But independence comes with a price. They face a rocky road to finding an audience, of paying for editing, covers, and proofreaders, then have to spend a huge portion of writing time marketing. All these factors makes the golden road shine a bit less bright and makes me feel like I am driving in circles.

Small press publishers have a few onramps that they give free to writers, marketing, editing, proofs, and cover art.  Still discoverability is an issue, the lack of advance, and royalties are smaller than if the writer had self-published.

There are many potholes and dead end streets on the road to being published, but I’m here, panicked, afraid, but also hopeful and determined.  I still have my caffeine, my music (now it’s Alt J playing on YouTube), and the twin headlights of my research and hard work guiding me.  I have a feeling I will hit the coast any minute now, if I could ever get out of this parking lot.

Every comment provides another lamppost to guide my journey.  Post away.

A few weeks ago Pam did a blog post on being a slow reader and her love for long epic fantasies. I was really inspired to write a similar post, but as I wrote I started thinking of all the books I’d read that really made me fall in love with reading.

And I realized I never really did. Fall in love with reading that is—not at first.

For me it was a genuine desire to escape into a new world. The best genre for that (for me) was science fiction. At ten I became a huge fan of Star Trek and in fifth and sixth grade I became addicted to the tie-in books in that universe. In eight grade I read Dune. I also liked sad animal books. You know the ones: Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows. I raised guide dogs for the blind (a volunteer project that followed me into adulthood) and so I knew what it was like to lose a furry friend. With very few other kids my age with the same experience to talk to, I used the made-up worlds as my counselors.

Except for one problem. I didn’t read very well. I had pretty poor comprehension (as tests showed throughout my school career). When I’d read out loud, it was choppy and disconnected. If I read something out loud, I couldn’t really understand what I’d read. It was as if my brain turned off. I always read slowly. I’d read the same paragraphs over and over, and never really retain all the details in a story…but I kept at it. My love for wonder outweighed my struggle.

I wrote slowly, too. I misspelled simple words over and over. I had difficulty learning another language. To this day I have a list of words (some of them pretty common) that are hard for me to pronounce correctly. Grammar baffled me. I knew all the major rules, but when it came to applying them I found it very difficult. As it got harder and as teachers become more frustrated, I gave up reading for pleasure. Most of my time in high school and beyond was dedicated to reading the texts I was assigned. I’d have to read a book or a history chapter several times to comprehend the basic information. I got headaches from staring at writing for too long.

My vision was checked several times.

I didn’t need glasses.

Notes taken while people were talking would mostly come out as sloppy gibberish.

I had a few charms going for me. I took theatre, so reading the same thing over and over and performing it taught me some classics that I’ll know inside and out (probably forever)—most of it Shakespeare. I could draw really well. I was good at math. And I really loved learning. Learning everything.

I took remedial English in college. I went to the writing center for help writing papers. Often my in-class work and homework were vastly different in quality. I’ve been accused of cheating several times. My boyfriend (now husband) had been accused of writing papers for me. His response? “I barely have time to do my own work.”

I loved his response. He proof-read my papers for me and offered corrections only some times, but after a while I stopped asking, because people assumed my high grades were in some way connected to his effort in helping me and it simply wasn’t true.

English teachers were confused by me and also frustrated with me. “You obviously struggle with this,” they would say. They’d see my immense effort on a project and it must have looked like I’d maxed out on my IQ ability in that particular area. A lot would refuse to give up insisting that writing is a skill we use the rest of our lives, but many, towards the end would try to pat me on the back and assure me that it was not important. I wasn’t going to be a writer. It didn’t matter.

I was never encouraged to write my ideas down. I had never been told some day I’d be good at this. I was never compared to well known or loved authors. I was nobody’s pick at a future profession in storytelling.

I know I’m not the typical “how I became a writer” fairytale.

When I was young I’d read a good book and instantly think of my own story to tell. I had piles of piles of stapled together books where I’d draw pictures for the scenes. The place where the words would go would be blank. I’d buy notebooks and sketch story ideas. For my eighth grade project I wrote the first chapter to a middle grade novel. My high school project I wrote and illustrated a children’s book. For my graduate thesis I studied subjective grading methods in writing and using a rubric to help students improve. I was very obviously interested in writing, but putting words to paper terrified me. Reduced me to tears. Every paper was an opportunity to explain to a teacher that I was not the bright student they expected based on my interactions in class. That I preferred audiobooks (when I could find them) and cliff notes as my go-to study aids. I had professors write me nasty notes on my assignments alluding to my lack intellectual ability. At the same time I graduated in the top five percent of my college, with honors in my major (undergrad), distinction (graduate school), and probably more scholarships than most students are blessed with. I was surely a confusing puzzle.

In college I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I have a strong family history of dyslexia. Several members in my family have been diagnosed. I have a very specific kind and I’m lucky that I have coping strategies and workarounds that enabled me to get as far as I had. At the point of my diagnosis I felt that I’d used every tool at my disposal and I’d nearly accepted I had hit the peak of what I was capable of.

What saved me? First, finding out I was dyslexic felt like newfound freedom. Like I had been drowning under a frozen lake and broke through the ice. A lot of people hate diagnosis, hate labels. It’s a fifty-fifty shot. Sometimes it holds people back and other times it gives them the room to grow. For me it was the latter. Dyslexia is different for different people. There are different types, different shades on the spectrum. I also have some sensory integration issues (mostly with sound). Every person has different body chemistry and different history. So what worked for me, or my story might not to translate others with the same diagnosis.

Second, it was working with dyslexic students. I was working on my graduates degree in school psychology and I diagnosed and treated children with learning, behavioral, and emotional disabilities. Which was pretty damn convenient for my professors after they diagnosed me. I suddenly had a full caseload of kids with reading problems to come up with treatment plans for. The catch? I had to do the tasks and assignments right along with them. I read Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz and other really great books on the subject to help come up with unique treatment plans. One little girl had a great spirit; she reminded me of myself at that age. This kid never gave up and always stayed after school to ask her teacher for ways to make up work she did poorly on. She wasn’t afraid to work hard, so why would I be?

Third, I picked up reading again. At first it was with audiobooks, then I went to the store and browsed the fiction section. Weary of titles and back covers that all sounded the same, I saw one that was perfect. It had fantasy, Scottish history (I’m a sucker for men in kilts; one of my never-written stories as a child featured a Scottish girl traveling across country by herself searching for her parents), romance, and it was long and epic! It sat on my self for a year before I read it. I think I read a hundred romance books before I finally got up the guts to read Outlander (that epic, fantasy, Scottish history, romance, and all around amazing book that is now a show).

This is the hardest experience for me to write about, or even talk about. Especially among other writers—because they know me now. They know I’m “not that bad” and I’m “too hard on myself” or “I use dyslexia as an excuse to continue to be lazy with grammar.” I’m sure it really does look that way. Fifteen years ago my writing looked very different. There is a handful of people who know my real journey and only because they knew me then (and corrected my notes of grammar/spelling errors when we’d pass them between class—you know who you are). And so when my parents, siblings, family, long time close friends, or my husband says they see my improvement, or that they’re proud of me—it’s the only time I get choked up about it. Because they know.

I love comments! Every time you comment a slow reader gets a rocket power boost to the next paragraph.