So I wrote a book... now what?!

Can I call myself an author? A creator? A crazy fucking mess? Oh, my apologies. I swear a lot so if you can't deal with that right up front, than Tennessee Dreams probably isn't going to be the best book for you to read... just saying.

So I've always dabbled in writing. I make lists. I dream crazy shit and write it down in a journal. Sometimes that journal is in my mind and other times I scribble something down on paper. I've tried poetry, but I am not very good at rhyming. I think you get my point.

Two years ago, a story on social media caught my attention... okay my obsession. An idea for a story filled my mind. I went insane. I thought about this scenario day and night and I started making shit up in my head. I've got to tell you... I've been watching General Hospital since I was 8 years old so I've got a pretty crazy imagination. On one rainy Saturday in Seattle while my partner of 15 years, Brian was watching college football, I got out my laptop and started writing. Like a fucking book... chapters and everything. I had just found my winter hobby.

It didn't take long for Brian to ask me what I was doing and I panicked. What in the fuck was I doing? I laughed... I slammed my laptop shut and then I looked into his eyes and I told him I was writing a book. Trust me when I tell you that just telling another person on the planet what I was doing was TERRIFYING. I am not a writer... I am just a mild mannered financial planner. I've never taken a writing course. I don't have a college degree in English and I thought to myself that over my dead body was anybody ever going to read what I was writing... so there!

So I finished my first book and I tell no other soul on this planet. Brian is supportive, but curious. He asks me what my plans are for my book... seeing that I've spent countless hours for months (make that a year +) writing like some crazed madman. Still... I heard myself tell him over and over again that I didn't have a clue... no plan (and this is coming from someone who literally plans everything). That's what fear can do to the mind and body.

Then I turned 50. Ouch! I told my friends and family that I was fine. It was no big deal. Just a number. Blah blah blah fucking blah. My first book was over... done. I missed the characters I had created and they were essentially in a dead zone. No one other than me knew they existed and I felt lost... and then Nashville came into view.

I approached my trip to Nashville like I approach all my trips. This one was for business, but heck... I've never been to Nashville before so I researched the hell out of Nashville. Music, bars, neighborhoods, bands, shopping, museums and oh by the way... Nashville is the capital of Tennessee (embarrassingly did not know that). Then one morning as I was putting on my mascara, Sadie came into my head. I grabbed my phone and I started dictating jumbled thoughts into a text message and then sent it to myself. I wrote the first chapter of Tennessee Dreams before I ever got on the plane to Nashville.

My writing isn't perfect, nor do I think that Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board is going to ring my phone, but hey... that's what dreams are for, right!?

This is my Tennessee Dream.