Someone told me today they were very impressed with how quickly I was writing books and getting them ready to publish. I had a confession to make to him: I’ve been writing for the last few years. I wrote books but I never did anything with them. I wrote them because I love to write. I feel compelled to write, actually. I get a story in my head and have to get it out. I go nuts if I don’t. Seriously:) You should see me working out a story idea. Out loud. To myself. Or to the dogs. It’s kinda scary…. Just kidding. Yeah. Just kidding.

I also confessed to him that I wrote for so long without showing my work to anyone else out of a fear of rejection. He laughed at me and said, “You? Scared?” Yeah. Me. I love to draw too and I never, never show my work in progress to anyone (except my husband because he lives in the same house with me and it would be awkward to ban him from the living room).

I wrote a couple of books that I have not sent anywhere and don’t know if I ever will. One of them was purely for fun and I don’t know if a reader would think it is as fun as I did when I was writing it. There is another one that I did submit and it was rejected. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with that one again either. Then there is Say You’ll Haunt Me. I submitted it to a publisher, they said they loved it and they worked with me to get it published.

Obviously, I got over my fear of rejection. Because of a bigger fear: working a factory job for the rest of my life. It is not what I want to do. I want to be outside riding a horse, playing in the garden or walking a dog. I want to be writing for a living. And I may have learned late in life, but I did learn: If I want something, I have to go for it, no matter how scared I am.

So, here I sit, waiting for book number two to be published. I’m still scared, but it gets easier every day.