Today, I listened to several YouTube videos with famous writers on subjects such as voice, character building, scene, plot, and more as I prepare for the weekend writing workshop I’m leading in Dallas beginning next Friday for Story Circle Network. One interview featured Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way) and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love; Big Magic, etc.), discussing the creative process and the importance of taking oneself on Artist Dates. This is primarily doing something weekly that nourishes your artistic nature to keep the creative pump primed.

In keeping with that directive, Ray and I are heading off to The Broad and Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) tomorrow for an afternoon of art immersion. Tuesday is Ray’s birthday, so this will be a mini-celebration. I already know this will make him (and me) exceedingly happy, which is lovely all on its own.

In these last few days before Hope in the Time of Dying is published, I will admit to a severe attack of nerves. This afternoon, I came up with at least half a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t publish this book, even after receiving another positive review from an advance reader. It helped to listen to Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Gilbert talk today about the reasons people (and they) give for not writing or taking the risk to publish. “It’s fear,” Elizabeth Gilbert said. “We don’t want to take the risk of failing.” Yes. Pure and simple. FEAR can put the kibosh on pretty much anything creative or exciting. “You better not,” that voice inside my head warns. “You don’t know what will happen, and is that a good idea?” I can almost see the arched eyebrow and a hand going on the hip of my ever-ready critic. Elizabeth Gilbert says she has started visualizing her critic as a big baby who just gets scared. Julia Cameron says she tells hers to “get outta here” since the words are all fear-based. I found myself this evening thinking, “You are just scared. It’s okay. That’s normal. Keep moving ahead.” Dear Lord in heaven, who knew this would happen?

So, here’s me moving ahead.

I want to share the novel’s opening scene, which introduces Hope Winterfield, the main character, just before she receives a phone call that will force her to choose between her current life and one that will take her and her family into an unfamiliar world filled with unforeseen obstacles.

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Excerpt from Hope in a Time of Dying

That day Robert called, I was sorting through boxes in the upstairs landing of our fifteen-room Victorian, trying to make sense out of the clutter in my life.

I looked around that large room where everything needed something. The water-stained maroon and gray wallpaper, the scarred antique partner’s desk, and the missing pane in the stained glass window all pleaded for my time.

My life was that room: Fix me, finish me, do what you said you would do. The house seemed to groan for that same attention. Complete this restoration you promised so long ago. I’m falling into decay here.

I had just returned from visiting my older brother Robert in Los Angeles, and here we were back in Fitzgerald, Texas. I was thirty-five years old and two miles from the house where I’d grown up. This was not the life I had in mind.

Today, an advance reader wrote that she read the book in three hours, loved all “the mysteries and twists,” and thinks “other readers will love it.”

Her response made me very happy, though my critic was in the background, still giving me that arched eyebrow look.

On Tuesday, March 18, the ebook Hope in a Time of Dying will be available for just $2.99 at Amazon and other major retailers. Please check it out, and if you like it, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d write a few comments on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

Pushing past the fear.

An exhibit we will see tomorrow at The Broad:

Yayoi Kusama’s immersive installation Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013) is a mirrored room with LED lights that you can physically enter for up to one minute.