Well, good news and bad news. I haven’t been blogging a lot. I’ll let you decide if that’s in the good or bad news category. I HAVE been writing though and that’s definitely good. I entered “Shaping Fate” in a contest, so fingers crossed. If nothing else, I know the feedback will be useful, just like when I entered Pike’s Peak. And then, I think it’s time to let out into the cold cruel world and see what happens.

I got inspired by my mini muse, my daughter. She requested that her training wheels be removed from her bike. There was no hemming and hawing about this, just a simple, “I think we should take those training wheels off.” Obviously, as a seven-year-old, she has a certain fearlessness, naivety about the world around her, which is great. She saw taking the training wheels off as another step toward independence. I saw it as that too, but the mom part of me also saw scraped knees, bruised egos and possible emergency room trips. But none of that occurred to her, or if it did, it was a marginal thought at best. She put on her helmet, my husband removed the training wheels and with a minimal amount of seat holding and running along side her, she had it down.

I’ve been with my book for longer than my daughter has been alive. Writing, editing, entering in contests, taking it to writer’s groups, more editing. All of these things are writer’s training wheels. And we DO need them at first. But how long is too long? I’m on my ninth draft, and I feel it’s as good as I can make it on my own. I’ll see what the comments say from the contest it’s in now and then, I think it’s time to take off the training wheels and see what happens.

If I do end up in the hospital though, please visit.