Dear Readers,

We just jumped off into another year and here it is the end of the first month already! One of the reasons I switched my career was to pay attention. Life is filled with small treasures. But like this small red-eyed tree frog I found in Costa Rica, you only find treasures if you take the time to look for them.

In 2015, I was accepted into the Algonkian Writer's Conference where I met with literary agents and even rubbed shoulders with publishing companies like Random House. The conference was expensive, exclusive, and exciting.

Nothing ever came of representation for my book, Clara's Voice. I did get an interested agent from the conference and she told me she wanted to represent me. But after 3 months, she ghosted me.

Ouch.

Every day that I didn't hear back from her I wanted to hop into a hole and disappear. After 6 months of thinking I was a total failure as a writer, I got tired of feeling sorry for myself and instead of standing at the edge of the hole, I climbed away from it and got busy: I rewrote the novel, changed the title to Still, and taught myself all about self publishing. All while teaching full time.

'Getting busy' is my writing story. Getting busy gave me something to do, something to learn, and something to have at the end of the day.

How did I start?

Paying attention. Treasures are always just sitting there, waiting to be discovered. Still is my treasure from the first Algonkian Conference.

My newest novel, Olney: 2009 was just accepted into the Algonkian Conference for this March. You can find my research for it on my blogs. Do I go? I left the ill-feelings about being ghosted by the edge of the hole years ago.

It may be time to try again.

Let me know what you think and I'll keep you posted.

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Best Quote From This Past Month:

"It's not the strongest of species who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

-Charles Darwin