Summer has folded.
Fall is wrapping around us like a fuzzy sweater with its crisp air and warm colors. I love this time of year. For me, autumn always feels like an opportunity for new beginnings. Maybe because I spent a number of years of my life as a teacher, the smell of falling leaves and a sudden drop in temperature brings me back to the newness of beginning a fresh school year. It’s my favorite.
I remember fall at Kent State University, where the trees on Front Campus were giants just begging to be written into a storybook. I used to love to plop down onto the crunchy beds of leaves at the trees’ big, gnarled bases and write poetry, prose, love letters, whatever. After an hour or so, I’d tuck away the loose leaf pages and head back to my apartment. Sometimes, weeks or even months later, I’d find a faded page, crumpled and forgotten in my jacket or jeans pocket. Those were such blessed surprises.
Now, I’m hunkered down at Starbucks, working on my fifth novel.
I guess I’ve come a long way from poetry and love letters. Honestly though, those old poems are just as important to me as the books I’ve written. When I peek back at them, they give me a glimpse of the girl I was twenty years ago, the dramas of my then less-blemished heart. Poetry, for me, was always a way to sort out my emotions. Sometimes, I never knew what was really bothering me until I read my own words.
People I meet now are always surprised to find out I majored in Deaf Education at Kent and then went back to school for Special Ed.
Not writing? Not English?
No, because I never thought of writing as a career path. For me, writing was as involuntary as breathing. It just happens to me; I never plan for it. In fact, when I started this today, I’d planned to write a new post for my blog’s food series. My soul takes me to different places through writing, though, and, I find they are always the places I need to be.
I had a hard time coming up with a name for my personal blog, because, truly, I write about everything. Hence the title – Whatever Inspires. Sometimes it is food. Other times, it’s the old man sitting alone in the coffee shop and the college girls sitting two tables away who are murmuring nasty things about him. I am inspired by everyday life and regular people. I love imagining what’s ticking inside the minds of strangers. That’s the writer in me, I guess. Building a twisty plot for an unsuspecting Joe who has no clue he’s going to be the main character of my next scene.
This fall, I’m diving right into a new endeavor as a Pandamoon Publishing author, and, as exciting as it seems, it’s a little daunting! I’m surrounded by all of these crazy talented, platform-worthy, ultra-knowledgeable, and tech savvy writers. I’m a part of their tribe! Little old me who just felt like writing a story about her amazing Italian Nana.
It’s not what I expected.
But, as writing takes my soul on journeys it needs to experience, life has brought this beautiful opportunity into my lap. I get to learn from, lean on, and team up with this group of writers while we all work together to make success out of inspiration.
My hope for my writing – my books and my blog - is that a little bit of what has inspired me will rub off on someone else. Maybe my article about seeing the revival of Spring Awakening will rev somebody else up to take a trip to New York City and experience Broadway. I would love that. Maybe my young adult paranormal series, The Whisper Trilogy, will make a random teen reader think twice before making the next bad decision. Maybe Whisper will remind a different teen that although he or she already made a bad decision, life is full of infinite chances. Who knows – maybe Beautiful Secret will spur a spike in airline flights from Pittsburgh to Italy – all scorned women hoping to discover a certain sexy foreigner to assuage their egos and ignite their souls.
If so, I want a kickback from Alitalia Airlines– in miles!
Happy fall everyone, and may you all be blessed with new experiences that take you precisely where you’re supposed to be.