The Dante quote above could be changed to ‘in the middle of my writing journey’ and it would be a perfect way to describe the last year or so of my writing life.
Like in most things, opportunities come and then pass away again. I’ve spent a long time writing and publishing and trying to get a toe hold into the slippery slope of book sales. The upside—I love writing, I love making stories, I could no more stop than I could stop breathing. The downside—publishing is hard. Sometimes, from my end of things, it seems like there are more books than there are people to read them. When one of my publishers, the one who’d been pubbing my women’s fiction, shut down for lack of sales, I felt disheartened. I was lost in a dark wood, metaphorically speaking.
It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally taking another first step into pub world. I’m re-releasing The Lilac Hour, the short story trilogy that first got me noticed by publishers. It had gotten a few scant good reviews in it’s former life. Here’s hoping the resurrection will be a success.
The other part of Dante’s quote resonates with me, too. The path forward is never straight. Sometimes it feels as though I’m walking in circles. But if I can distance myself and really look, I notice those circles are concentric. Each a little bigger than the last, each encompassing a bigger piece of life. My life, both writing and personal, expands. Like the universe. May it always be so.
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