In Which I Get to Meet Some Of My People

I missed writing a blog post in January, in large part because I was busy feeling sorry for myself, but I blogged twice in December, so that makes up for it, right? Right? Whatever. All six of you who regularly read these posts can rejoice over me having a new one. 😂

Remember that new idea I was excited about? Or that thread of hope I was hanging onto in December? Yeah, that new idea is currently stalled in chapter 5. So I started a rewrite of the contemporary MG I wrote almost three years ago. It also stalled in chapter 5. Since my contemporary romance is also stalled in chapter 5, it's clear this is a theme for me. Don't ask me why chapter 5 is the one that breaks me.

A couple weeks ago I had a full on meltdown at dinnertime because my son didn't want to eat the dinner I had made with him specifically in mind. I am over having kids who are picky eaters despite everything I've tried to change that and who have only gotten worse with age (they're way past preschool), but that's not what the meltdown was really about. It was really about the fact that I feel like all my years of effort in writing have gotten me nowhere. Empirically I know that's not true. I've continued to develop my craft. I've formed great relationships within the writing world. I've gotten to know the industry much better than I did three years ago. But none of that is any guarantee I'll get an agent, let alone a book deal, and in the end that is still both my dream and my goal.

My breakdown was well timed, because it happened not long before something that was planned back in October: a retreat in Nashville, Tennessee with some of the other women in the #MGWaves. In case you don't want to look back at the linked post, in brief, the Waves are a writing support and critique group that began as a group for people who had submitted middle grade books to Pitch Wars in the fall of 2020. Some of the original members left after Pitch Wards ended, and some others came in through friends. Over the years, we've developed real friendships, though most of us had never met in person.

This past weekend 14 of us rectified that with a retreat in Nashville, Tennessee. This was not a writing retreat, though a couple people did write while we were together. It was a gathering of friends who write. It was also exactly what my soul needed. I still don't know if I will every be agented or published. But even if that doesn't happen for me, I'm thankful I started the journey because it led me to an incredible group of friends.