I can see a string of colored lights curled around a fence  out back. They aren’t our colored lights, but I can see through the sliding glass door from where I sit in my recliner. I am not at my writing desk. I am on the verge of exhausted as I have taught all week. Once again, my resolve as a writer has been tested. I learned this week that it is back to the drawing board for pitching my novel. While it was disappointing, for some reason it was not earth shattering. My mother called the day after I told her that my novel wasn’t picked up by the publisher who asked for a full a little over a month ago. She worried that I would be wallowing in self-pity. While I have done so in the past, I didn’t this time. I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am living the life I want, now. I am teaching, so the publishing thing doesn’t feel as urgent. I know I am supposed to be doing all of this.

I’ve written before about the couple of times in high school I had written something and teachers pulled me aside to tell me I should send those things out. One thing I neglected to mention about those incidences is that it wasn’t so much that the teachers recognized anythings. Recently, I got in touch with an old friend from my high school French class. It got me thinking about why those teachers said anything, one of them was my French teacher Mrs. Hodgins. I remembered the feeling I had when I wrote those couple of things. I remembered the feeling of excitement I had as I created those stories. I didn’t realize then that that was the spark of inspiration. I might even have been frightened by that spark in some way. Either way, I knew what I was being shown then was that I loved creating stories. I just didn’t really realize it until much later. Well, it’s back to the drawing board, but no biggie. I’ll get there.