In an earlier post titled On Urgency and Writing. I shared my Three Steps to Failure process in terms of writing. Unfortunately, it isn’t exclusive to that one aspect of my life.

Quick review of these steps:

1. Get excited about storytelling and buy something to solidify the excitement: book, webinar series, etc
2. Enter the Overthink It phase where basically I decide that the whole idea of me writing is crap
3. Hide under a rock until anyone I mentioned my excitement about writing to forgets about it and/or loves me enough to save me from humiliation and not bring it up

I’m pretty sure the only time I actually went through the entire process of writing and illustrating a story was the one I titled, “The Capture of the Jimson Gang”. As you can see, my editor was brutal! Since then, I’ve gone through my Three Steps to Failure process a number of times.

In 1997, I had recently moved to Virginia Beach with Scott (Husband #2).  Walking around at an outdoor music festival one day, I was struck by genius. I could interview people and turn them into characters in a book. Fueled by the giddy adrenaline of pure genius, I left Sister Hazel behind and I headed to the bookstore. Unfortunately, the Step 1 excitement moved through the Overthink It phase and landed in Step 3 faster than you can say, “Fiction for Dummies.” The book I bought to set me on the writer’s journey basically went straight from the Barnes & Noble bag to the living room bookshelf, never to be touched again.

Eighteen years later, the literary bug bit again. I spent three months volunteering in a South African township, then later in the year, I spent three months of crazy in Kenya. Note: three months is the standard time frame for a Visa. Incidentally, it’s also the standard amount of time it takes a family to stage an intervention and insist that their loved one come home already!

The situations, people and experiences in Africa were beautiful and crazy. Lots and lots of crazy! I’ve GOT to share these stories, right? Right! I used a good chunk of my savings to buy a generic web host thing, a two year subscription. And you guessed it, I never wrote a single blog post, never even changed the name from me@webhostthing.com. I chickened out. I was terrified of not being a good writer, of hurtful comments or worst of all… nobody giving a shit about what I had to say. I know you’re not supposed to care. Just develop a thick skin and move forward. My skin wasn’t there yet.

Then one day earlier this year, just as covid was beginning to get out of hand and everything was shutting down, I was going for a walk and listening to a David Sedaris book for the fourteenth time. I’m seriously obsessed with David Sedaris. So I’m walking around laughing out loud when it hit me … I can do this! I can write short witty stories about some of the ridiculous situations I’ve gotten myself into or things I’ve noticed throughout my day. Maybe I don’t have the attention span to write fiction, but this? Hell yeah! I can do this!

I attended a writer’s workshop and was hooked! I signed up for a nine month Get Your Book Done! program on the spot. (Step 1) In the beginning of the program, I resisted writing and made excuses for being late with submissions. (Step 2) And I did hit Step 3, a few times actually, but this time I didn’t let myself hide under a rock. Not for very long anyway.

I’m writing a memoir that looks nothing like a David Sedaris book. It’s not the book I thought I was going to write, it’s the one that wanted to be written. The working title, Don’t Get Me Started …, no longer works. I haven’t given up on using that title or my Sedaris-esque style of short, witty vignettes. I am, however, doing my best to give up my attachment to those Three Steps to Failure.

Now, nearly nine months after attending that workshop, I’m on zoom every morning at 6:00am with other writers working on the memoir that still doesn’t have a title. And after being prompted by the mystery auto payment on my credit card bill that turned out to be my forgotten website, I have this website and it has an actual name! I’m also sharing bits and pieces of my life in my blog lovingly titled Don’t Get Me Started …