Onward and Upward

A number of you have been with me on this Chasing Light journey since the very beginning, way back in 2017 when I had a little homemade Wordpress blog and updated you with posts from the road. It was a joy then to bring you along with me, and it is a joy now, as the journey continues, in a markedly different way, to be sure, and to have added so many more of you.

Here is an update. I finished the first draft of the memoir in August 2020. Over the next two years beta readers and friends from my writing group of MFA pals helped me revise again. Then again. And again. And…you get the picture. Anyway, the book is now in the best shape I am able to get it and is complete at 74,500 words.

Currently, five agents are reading the full manuscript (working title: Chasing Light: One Van, Two Dogs, and an Ex-Pastor’s Search for the Divine). It’s a tough slog out there for authors right now, and especially for memoirists. I’m cautiously hopeful while being realistic. Daily, I send good vibes out into the Wish-o-Sphere™ but otherwise I have to coax my brain to let it alone, remind myself I’ve done what I can, and to move along.

So. I’ve begun a new book project (working title: A Strange and Beautiful Place) that has to do with environmental issues, oceans and trees and my mother, as well as a whole lot of other things I’ll discover as I dig in. This is currently front burner.

I’ve also pulled out my first book project that I shelved when I set out on my Chasing Light trip, an essay collection that was my MFA thesis (working title: Naturally Occurring Junctures). Many of those essays have been published in journals and magazines. Others need major revision, and there are about six more, either begun or envisioned, to be added. Sudden energy to attend to those has visited me as well.

Because my life themes are widely the same, it’s not too much of a challenge to work back and forth between these new/old projects. I search for meaning. I wonder about mortality. I ponder what it means to love and be loved. I listen for footsteps of the Divine. I revisit the lessons of grief and loss. I consider how my life journey has reshaped me. I think about what and who we are to be to each other. I celebrate wonder and the natural world. I search for meaning.

In September I’ll be teaching a 4-week writing course for adults through UNCW’s OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) and have a regular freelancing gig with a local Wilmington magazine, but otherwise what you see above is how I spend my working days.

This writing life is not for the faint of heart, or honestly anyone with more than a lick of common sense. But here we are. And I wouldn’t change any of it.

Onward. Thanks for your company. I’m deeply honored.