Well I reached a milestone last night.

  I’m now three quarters through my memoir One Step at a Time. I’ve got a good chunk left but I was able to get twenty five pages written this weekend which is way beyond what I can normally pull off.   Writing novels is so much easier and I can always lose myself in the story, in the characters, in what’s going on. Writing twenty five pages of a novel is nothing. Writing twenty five pages of a memoir is incredibly hard.   

I had no idea what the journey would entail when I started writing One Step at a Time. I had no idea the emotions I would feel, the memories I would stir up, the forgotten things that would come back into the forefront. It’s been a gruelling, emotional experience and I’ve still got a bit to go.

But you know, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  This is the most involved I’ve been with my writing in forever. I like writing novels but don’t love it. I love writing short stories but, regrettably, that’s a genre of writing that has fallen by the wayside. No one publishes short stories anymore. So novels it is. But I’ve never gotten emotional when writing my novels except for The Ghost Mirror.   

I’ve cried, raged, and had nightmares while writing One Step at a Time. It’s been agony, blissful, joyful, frightening, and revealing and all manner of other things.

What I find most interesting about it all is that this is the first time I’ve taken to sit back and take a good honest look at me. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know why this is, why I haven’t bothered. But there you go. That’s the truth of it.

I can now look at myself and feel that I am proud of me, proud of myself; I haven’t been able to say this about myself for years. Sure, I could think it, ponder it, hold it like a stone in the palm of my hand. But I’ve never felt it. Now I can.

A few wonderful people have been test readers for me. The lovely Caroline, my Husband, Dorothy. I can’t thank these people enough. They have read my words (MY words, not a story, which just floors me) and have still looked at me the same way, have still seen me as me. I can’t thank them enough for that. I love them for that, for being able to still respect me and love me for me after reading what I’ve written.

  And now I can see the end of the journey coming. I know its coming; I can see the light at the end of the preverbal tunnel. And now that is frightening. I’m ending the memoir just after Robert (My beautiful husband) proposes to me. I know there will be at least one more book detailing my life after One Step at a Time. I already have a working title in mind.    The future is ahead of me and that is the greatest adventure there is.