So, technically, today's post is supposed to be all about first books. And while it will be that, I would like to add a little dash of thanksgiving, because now, years later, I can be truly thankful for the horrendous series of events that brought about my first book. But first, a little background...
I was in the second grade when I put aside childish dreams of being a spy/cartoonist/veterinarian to follow the calling that pulled my ear each night: writing. I had things to say, things the world needed to hear. Granted, the first one was about penguins afloat on an iceberg and the second a book about time-traveling orphans and an easy-going beach-comber. Hey, I said I had things to say that the world needed to hear; I didn't say they were things anyone wanted to hear.
Anyway, the dream continued on through grade school, through a middle-school stint where everything I wrote featured some kind of coming-of-age segment (braces, menstruation), through a melancholy high school Sylvia Plath phase, through a collegiate change-the-world phase and off into the real world. Post graduation, I figured I would take an indiscriminate day job while pushing out the Great American Novel at night. How hard could it be?
Ten years later, I knew. It was hard. Really freakin' hard. So, being unattached and with the minimum of responsibilities, I quit my job. It's now or never, I told myself.
And then I broke up with the man I planned to marry.
And then my house burned down.
And then I found myself over thirty and back in my salmon-pink childhood bedroom, cuddling my ratty old teddy bear underneath a poster of The New Kids on The Block, their smiling mugs still glossy with Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers.
I was miserable at that time in my life. I was lonely; my sole possessions were a sequined halter top, a left shoe, and the clothes I wore on the day of the fire. I lost everything. But it took losing everything - everything - to be reminded of my purpose in life. I was going to write. I was supposed to write. And for that tiny realization, that small certainty, I wast thankful.
I was also a slow learner and ridiculously hard headed (hence the need to have my entire house burned down), but that's beside the point. Now, four years later, my life is nearly unrecognizable from the salmon-colored one. I write. I go on book tours. I have my own home and a wardrobe that includes far more than that sequined tank top, but above all, every single day, I'm thankful.
My first novel, Rebound Guy, came out of that miserable experience. I snagged my agent with it, and although it never sold (though it is currently available as an ebook on Amazon), it was the novel that got me on my feet again, pointed me in the right direction. I was never a woman who thanked the universe for small favors. But now, so many years later, I don't wait for the day the turkey pops out of the oven, the day the top button pops off my pants: I make it a point to be thankful for every day, for every person and every experience that brought me to my current state. Because good or bad, I know with my whole self that I am exactly where I'm meant to be.
With that, I wish a happy Thanksgiving to you all and I hope that you all take a moment today to think about what it is you are truly thankful for.
