Oh, my heart. My sweet book is out in the world! I don’t even know how to express all the emotions I’ve felt while preparing for the release this past month. I think I can safely boil them all down by saying I’ve been a little nuts. Grateful. Excited. But definitely a little nuts.

But it’s an amazing feeling as well, and I’m so glad it’s finally reality.

Anybody who has met me in the last decade has heard about the creative love of my life: my first book, Love on Paper. I started writing it in 2010, during a really complicated and difficult period in my life. I won’t bore you with all the details, but this book saved me in countless ways. It gave me hope and purpose during infertility, business struggles, and the loss of multiple treasured loved ones. But when it came time to publish? I was petrified. It just meant so much to me; I didn’t know how I could let it go.

Did you know Maya Angelou rented hotel rooms for months and used them as writing offices? Each day she drove from her home to the hotel and was stretched across the bed by 6:30AM, working on her craft.

We can't all rent our own private writing space, but most of us can find a special corner somewhere - a seat near the window in a favorite coffee shop; the corner stool at your local dive bar.

Today, I got an unexpected gift. At 41 years old, I got to be a little kid with hurt feelings again. Someone I love got annoyed with me and said a few rude things. Not someone who I’m super comfortable with, but someone I admire who I also don’t see often or know well enough to be perfectly, comfortably myself around. I think that’s why it actually got to me; as adults, we don’t get the brunt of others’ frustration in quite the same way that we do as kids. Adults don’t often speak to other adults with words that are blunt, intentional tools of shame that they sometimes - unfairly - do with kids.

Three years ago, I was so intent on pursuing a dedicated writing career. I started strong, but floundered when an incredible academic editing job popped up out of nowhere. Frankly, the job was a miracle. I've never enjoyed working for other people; typically, I like running my own show. But this job is different. It combines the nerdy fun of editing with helping people achieve their dream career. I loved it right away—I still do!—but it ate up all my time.