Where I Dwell

            Everyone has a story to tell. Is there room for mine?

            This is the question I ask myself every time I attend a writer’s conference. Surrounded by others, like me, who have spent hours, days, months and even years writing something, I wonder—is my “something” as special as theirs?

            Usually I determine my book must not be. Look how confident they are! How brilliant their premise. How smart they sound. How savvy they are. Look how many followers they have on social media. Some days I’m not sure I’d even follow myself.

            And yet I keep going. Typing, rewriting and reordering word after word.

            Why? Because I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve written many other things—press releases, biographical sketches, articles, skits—but never a book.

            I made my living promoting other people’s works. I’ve been busy doing other things—good and necessary things. Still my desire to write hasn’t subsided.

            Now is the time. Now is the only time I’m sure I have.

            If I don’t write the book I have in my heart, no one else will. They might write something similar, but it will never be exactly the way I’d write it.

            What is the thing you’ve always wanted to do but were too _________?

            We can always name something that hinders us. Instead, let’s be like Emily Dickinson. She said, “I dwell in possibility.” She wrote her poems on scraps of paper as she gardened outside the home she rarely left. Yet look at the difference her life made.

            Embrace your possibilities. Now is the time! The world will be better for it.