Thursday, February 14, 2013

Someone Who Believes

I got cut from the ABNA contest yesterday.  While I was disappointed, obviously, I was relatively okay.  Getting to Round 2 is always something of a long shot, and I was very lucky to make it to that (and beyond) last year.  Getting cut at this juncture hurt a lot worse than getting cut as far into the contest as I did last year, to be honest.  By this morning, I was more or less fine.

However, I happened to stumble upon this quote by Stephen King from his book On Writing today.  And after yesterday, when a lot of people were telling me they were sorry I didn't make the cut, it spoke something more to me than I originally read it in the book a few years ago.

"Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough."
 
The thing is, I'm really lucky to have several people who believe in me.  And after yesterday, and all the other rejections they've seen me get, I feel like they need to be thanked.  Because I am grateful.  I truly am.  So here are just a few of the people I'm blessed enough to have in my life and who have made it very clear how much they believe in me.

That's me when I was 2 years old playing with my parents' typewriter (and that's my dad with me).

  • My parents.  When I was still too young to read on my own, they read to me nightly and took me on trips to the library to get books.  I firmly believe they're the reason I have such an active imagination (because of all those stories in my life at such a young age).  And when I told them I wanted to study Creative Writing in college, they didn't scoff or tell me no or tell me to major in something more likely to get a job quickly--they told me they wanted me to be happy, they wanted me to study something that makes me happy.  And ever since graduating and beginning querying, they've cheered me on.
  • My sister, Laura, because she's a good enough sport to beta read for me when she has the free time.  And then she gets just as excited about some of my stories as I do (the ones she's read, anyway).
  • Obviously my writers group, the Marysville Writers Group, who welcomed me with open arms a couple of years ago and have been my writerly support system ever since.
  • My friends and my two roommates, all of who are just awesome and who support me in their own special, sometimes sarcastic ways.
  • My boyfriend, Alan, who hung out with me last night after I got cut and seemed to make it his personal mission to get me to smile.  And then when he asked what I do now that ABNA's over for me, and I told him I'm going back to querying, he seems to have made it his personal mission to make sure I get my querying done.

So I'm pretty lucky when it comes to having a support system for my writing life.  And I'm so glad I have all these people in my life.

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