Where am I going on this writing journey of mine??

In which I admit I've been lost for a while.

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is get on the subway or other form of public transport, get off on a random stop, and explore that area. I’ve found that it’s been the best way to really get to know a place beyond the beaten path. Don’t get me wrong, I WANT to see all the famous things. But I also want to know the heart of a place, what makes it tick, and where can I find delight in the unexpected.

I recently attended the Writer MBA conference in New Orleans put on by

Monica & Russell

for the second year in a row, and as it was last year, I found the conference deeply transformative. I’ve gotten to know them both over the past couple of years, and honestly, anytime you can be in a room with either of them, I highly encourage you to do so. They’re some of the brightest minds in publishing, and I love being on the journey with them. One of the things Russell is known for is that he goes on these fun and interesting adventures at every conference. Since this was his conference, I wasn’t sure if he’d have time for an adventure, but we ended up finding one.

Russell asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him that I hadn’t yet gotten to ride one of the street cars in New Orleans. He told me about a place we could go via streetcar, so I was in charge of figuring out the details. Monica was able to join us, and we ended up at this streetcar stop for what seemed like an eternity. Every time I checked the app, it said the next streetcar was coming in either 7 or 11 minutes. Which turned out to be the better part of an hour, but it was great to hang out with them and chat.

But here’s the thing: the first street car to come by was going in the opposite direction. Russell had heard the bus driver on a bus that had come by tell some other people to go there, so we decided to go ahead and get on the street car. As we were going, I told Russell, “I think we got on the wrong street car. We’re going the wrong way.” And Russell said, “we’re on an adventure. There is no wrong way.”

Which is true! Sure, we had a destination in mind, but the point had never been the destination. It had been to ride a street car and have an adventure. Which we were doing! It reminded me of my usual travel thing, so I felt happy and grateful I was getting to have this adventure. And guess what? We had a delightful afternoon, found some great shops, wonderful conversation, and I felt like my friendship with Monica and Russell grew even more.

So what does this have to do with my writing? Look at the picture I used for this post. Do you see how happy I am? Russell took a selfie of the three of us on the street car, and the thing I noticed right off is my happiness. How relaxed and free I look. I remember last year, I was in the beginning stages of my divorce, terrified what things would mean for my career, and I felt lost, broken.

The truth is, I still feel a bit lost and broken. What came out of the conference for me, as I told people many times, is that I am essentially taking my writing, throwing it in a dumpster, and setting it on fire.

I have been through my own trial by fire. Over the past year, I have lost everything I held dear, things I never would have imagined losing. In addition, our country, our world has changed so much that the things I used to write and find satisfaction in no longer give me peace. I don’t recognize the person who wrote those things anymore. Which isn’t a bad thing. If we aren’t growing and changing, we’re stagnating and going backwards. Mine just happened really quickly, and not in a way I expected.

Which has left me going back and forth on what to write. As I write this, I have to be honest. I still don’t know what my publishing career will look like. And that’s okay. I’m doing one of my favorite things, metaphorically speaking, and I’m getting on a street car, with no particular destination in mind, and I’m having an adventure. Just as we found ourselves in New Orleans, in a cool spot with a lot of interesting things to see and do, that’s what will happen with my writing.

Right now, I’m editing a fantastical romance set in a snow globe world, thanks to my friends Kayla Hensen and Wynn Valentine, who wrote books in a similar setting and encouraged me to write one of my own. I’m writing a women’s fiction novel about three women finding their footing in a community garden following their divorces. I have a few romances I wrote but never published languishing on my hard drive that I’ll also be editing and putting out at some point. But, like the seeds in the garden of my women’s fiction novel, it’s all germinating, and I don’t have a timeline of when they will sprout and be ready for the world.

What I can tell you is that the new things I’m working on, and even the edits of the old things, they’re all going to be a reflection of who I am blossoming into. And I hope, that as you accompany me on wherever the adventure takes us, you’ll find delightful little paths that bring the same smile to your face that I have on mine.