Day One of Writers of the Future

Day one of my Writers of the Future adventure has come and gone, and I'm feeling pretty great. Well, technically day one is today I guess, so I should say that Day Zero of my Writers of the Future adventure has come and gone, and I'm feeling pretty great. When I call it day zero it makes me think that there's going to be something uber-exciting like a typhoid Mary or a zombie apocalypse.  But mostly, all the winners arrived and we had our orientation.

Brandon, Scott Parkin and I were the first to arrive. I'd been warned ahead of time by a previous year's winner to expect cameras. Holy cow, they weren't lying! They filmed us driving up in the car. They filmed my feet as I walked into the hotel. They snapped pictures as we checked in and said our first hello's to the other winners. It felt a little like I'd stepped onto the set of a reality show. Only without having to vote anybody off the island by the end of the week. Which is good. Because I really like everyone I've met. :)

We spent the entire day hanging out in the lobby of the hotel, so we could say hello to everyone as they arrived. At about 7 last night, we were taken upstairs for a run down of the week by Dave Wolverton and Tim Powers. They'll be the main two instructors through the first part of the week. It was really intimidating to be told that we'll be expected to write a completed short story in just 24 hours. Dave is an excellent teacher, I've taken a workshop from him before. Tim seems like he's also going to be a great teacher, and they actually managed to present the idea in a way that took the edge off the fear.

I hope I can hold onto that in the coming days.

We were also handed a beautiful hard cover book about L Ron Hubbard's writing career and his thoughts on how to be a professional writer (our text book for the week), and a magnetic name badge that has our name, the year we won, and the name of our winning story engraved on it.

I have to say, seeing the name of my story, engraved in gold, and absolutely real, actually made me want to cry a little bit. Even though I've been through this process, and I've seen the galleys and I've known for awhile that this was coming, seeing my name and the title of my story actually written down like that, made it all suddenly become very real. That surprised me.

It felt pretty awesome.

Nothing stands still for very long and big adventures are on their way.

Change is hard.

Especially when it’s constant.

I love adventure. I love exploring, and experiencing new things. But I’ve realized in the past few years that I haven’t had a real good adventure in quite a while. I used to go hiking. I used to drive out into the middle of nowhere just to see what I could find. Much to the dismay of my mother, I used to camp all by myself and stay up all night just to watch the stars.

Then I had children and it all stopped. My hobbies faded away and got replaced by ‘mommy-crafts’ and kid science. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I’d have picked for myself without the kids to consider. I haven’t played the guitar for years, even though I was starting to get pretty good at it. I haven’t been on a solitary hike in so long it’s been hard to remind myself that I can, when the kids are school.

Now that they are older, I find myself longing to find my adventure again.

My husband and I are in the middle of some very big choices right now, and it’s been hard. Fantastic opportunities are opening up that are going to allow me to find my adventure all over again. But they are so incredibly different. And they are both filled with so much adventure.

I wouldn’t have thought that having to pick just one of the two things you’ve wanted for as long as you could remember could be so difficult.

Either direction we go will be wonderful. My youngest will start full time school soon and I’ll have time to pick up the guitar again, do some yoga without turning into a jungle gym, make a salad for lunch without being whined at because it wasn’t a cheese tortilla. I’ll be able to actually sit down and read a book in silence, instead of squeezing in a chapter or two of audio book while I juggle playdates, laundry and quick trips to Walmart.

It’s all so close I can taste it. And it’s all going to happen soon.

Only it hasn’t happened yet. And I’m currently stuck in a holding pattern of ‘wait, it’s on its way’… Only I suck at waiting and everything in my life has slowed itself to a stand-still. Largely because our choices keep changing. New opportunities keep being introduced. Every time I think we get things settled and I know what to expect next, I get a text from my husband asking, “So what about this…?’’

And the choices keep getting better but I feel right now like my life is balanced on shifting sand and it’s all I can do to keep upright as my world slides around beneath me.

I just want to pick one, so I can be done. So I can know what’s coming next.

It’s the not knowing what’s coming next that’s driving me nuts.

Only I keep saying that I want my adventure back, and change is the only way it’s going to happen.

But man, change is really, really hard.