Samhain Publishing

I’m both honored and humbled to be blogging here today – you see, I’m still somewhat of an emotional mush when it comes to September 11th. Seven years ago today, of course, the world as we knew it shifted.

For two weeks after the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon burned, and a crater opened up in a Pennsylvania cornfield, I opened my local paper and read lists of obituaries. I live in a northern suburb of New York City, and my neighbors are teachers in the Bronx, financial planners in Manhattan, firefighters who serve in the city and raise their families in the country. Many went to work that day and never came home. In the days and months that followed, I watched my friends and co-workers struggle with loss and disbelief. I came home to find a message on the answering machine from someone in France who was simply calling American telephone numbers to offer support. I discovered that a college classmate of mine left behind a wife and their 6-week old daughter when he stood up to the terrorists on Flight 93. I struggled to make sense of something senseless.

And then, like many others, I began to reevaluate my priorities and my life-long “to do” list. I realized that if becoming a published author was something I wanted to accomplish, I’d better begin the journey sooner rather than later. “Later” sometimes doesn’t come around the way we think it will. That’s when I started to write.

In December of 2001, I joined an online writers’ group. I studied the craft. I plotted (and plodded) and wrote and revised. I cursed my computer. I shared my woes with my writing colleagues. I joined RWA. I learned about agents and editors and small presses and marketing strategies. And this past July, after nearly seven years of efforts, I held my very first novel in my hands.

On bright fall days with endless blue skies, I still go outside and look up. I mourn all that we lost seven years ago today. I say a prayer. I promise to remember. Then I go back inside, and I write.