Que Sera Sara?

I have to come clean.

I’ve been harbouring a secret. And in the world of full-frontal bloggery, that’s tantamount to sin.

I mean, what is a blog if not a license to read and judge a total stranger’s faceless life?

So I’ll start at the beginning.

*

A million years ago, I resolved to do Thirty Things.

Partly as a gimmick to stave off aging but mostly remind myself of what matters, and hopefully therein find inspiration to do all the things I keep putting off and denying.

The greatest of these, for me, is writing.

Words are a balm to my soul, and spoken or unspoken, language is the lens through which my world makes sense.

I may titter about and occasionally write a blog post or a snippet on a napkin of which I am proud, but rarely, oh so rarely do I commit myself to the page wholly and completely.

Do I tell the stories burned in my heart and etched under my skin.

The ones worth sharing. The ones that ring with truth older than the hills.

But last summer I did.

I wrote a story I truly meant. A thing I was longing to say.

I sent it to an editor.

And at last [thirty years and] six months later, my own genuine writings are out in the world.

It is not great. Already I would do so much otherwise and elseways.

But it is short and small and mine.

Besides, no one runs before they walk and I am grateful at all that my own real voice is in the world, however afraid of it I am.

I feel like a kid jumping at her shadow. Startled at the boom of my echo in the dark.

And so, it gives me great pause to tell you:

I have a story. Published in a book. By a for reals publisher. And available to buy.

It is part of anthology, a book of travel writing. I’ve never been one for concocting other worlds. The one I’m in is far too fascinating, and more unbelievable than any fiction.

I don’t know if you will read it. I don’t mind if you don’t.

But I know from a million and one lives lived on the other side of the pen, that a story is only half finished until someone reads it.

And so I hope someone somewhere does.

For then it will be our story, clothed in the richness of the world. And it will come alive.

The collection is currently available on Kindle in pretty much every country in which they are sold. If you want to see my name in the Amazon charts click HERE for US and HERE for UK.

It will be out in other digital editions next month and in paperform later in the year.

I wait with baited breath to hold it in my hands.