When I was a kid, I loved stories so much, I wrote them all down. Every year, my school held the “Young Authors” program. Each student was given a blank, hardcover book. We plotted, wrote, and illustrated them. We were authors, poets, and artists.

I still have mine.

Not because I thought to put them away for adult me to look at and wonder at the brain that created them. But because my mom decided to tuck them away and save them for me.

Thank goodness she did.

I wrote all through college and into my early twenties, but I never really thought of it as a career. I started so many stories, but never finished any. I knew I could write, but to write a whole book? Holy cow, what craziness is that?! I wrote a few children’s stories. Those were easier. Shorter. I wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t really know how. I could never see the big picture of what it would look like at the end.

Like many people, I tucked my dreams of books and writing away. I moved on to an adult job in logistics and supply chain management. What a mouthful to say.

I met my future husband two months before he left for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base. I had to meet his parents (and the rest of his large family) without him. That was 13 years, 4 dogs, 4 states, 2 kids, and a partridge in a pear tree ago.

I guess I have always been big on taking leaps and seeing where I might land later.

I left my writing and stories behind for a while. There were difficult years that took up the space in my mind where the stories lived. I moved far away from home for the first time. I had a baby and then another baby. I worked outside the home, helping to create a life for my new tiny humans. The pandemic hit, and the world shutdown. My dad passed that year. He was in an assisted living center 1,000 miles away, and not being by his side when he passed weighed heavily on me.

I always thought about the stories. They were always with me wherever we went. I just didn’t have the time for them. But I knew someday I would come back, and they would still be waiting for me.

And then my mom sent me the books. Five child-created books, and I remembered how much I loved them. Creating them, writing them, reading them. I’ve even passed on my love of stories to both of my children. I think half of our household goods are books. The movers sometimes hate us.

My love of words and stories flowed back. I stepped into the world of Author Accelerator and was a student. I learned a new way of planning a book.

My kids were getting older. I had a little more free time.

Stories were calling my name, but it wasn’t enough to just create my own.

I wanted to support other writers, too.

So, I became a book coach.

I wouldn’t change a thing. All the steps in my journey led me here. To words, and stories, and writers, and books.

I am exactly where I was meant to be, at exactly the right time.

I’ll see you in the pages.