You Should Be a Writer

You should be a writer." My mother's voice echoed in my head over the years. I wrote entertaining letters, back in the day when long distance communication required such archaic means.  And, I was skilled at producing THE CHRISTMAS LETTER, abhorrent as the Christmas fruit cake which is re-gifted, making its way around the world until finally one year it ends up at your house again.
Nevertheless, creative letters does not a author make.

Authors are English Literature Majors.  They don’t read for pleasure and entertainment.  They study the classics concluding what their professor claims was the author’s point, or impetus, or skill.  I imagine the authors of yesteryear looking down from their Heavenly perch—or up from their scorching post, as the case may be—with arched brow thinking. “So that’s what I meant.”

I nearly flunked my first and last lit class.  I was a college dropout.  And I was mother of six young children spanning a mere eleven years—each one an insurmountable barrier to writing, to my way of thinking.  A successful playwright assured me that neither a lit major nor college education was a prerequisite to good writing.  My young children became adults and moved out.  No more excuses.  I took a couple of writing classes, subscribed to writer’s magazines, wrote three novels, entered contests, joined a writer’s group, and signed my first publishing contract January 2012.
Finally an author.

What looks easy on paper took sixteen years and a myriad of rejections.
And my dream has become a nightmare; another email account, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Web page, endorsements, speaking engagements, book signings, Trailers, etc., etc., etc.
I’m hyperventilating.