Writing

In May 2009 I quit my job–a paid job writing for an IT company–to pursue a personal goal. I needed to finish a book I was writing, a compilation of interrelated short stories.

I had no clear idea how I was going to support myself beyond August, but I knew it was the right thing to do. A very clear voice had been prompting me for months to take the leap, and I finally listened.

Where I landed, well, that’s another story. One I am working on now.

The immediate result of quitting, as far as writing is concerned, was that I finished my book and in 2011 entered it into the highly competitive Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Competition where it placed as a finalist in the Mainstream Fiction category.

Two of the stories from this compilation have since been published, “The Haystacks” in August 2012 and “The Mermaid’s Tale” in September 2012. Another, “The Fisher King,” won the Leo Tolstoy Honorable Mention Award in the 2012 Athanos Christian Ministries Short Story Writing Contest.

I am still working toward publication of the whole compilation of stories, but I got sidetracked by another writing project, a book about running. Not how to run or where, but how running changes things and people. How running changed me. And how, through running, I have met some amazing women whose lives have been impacted by running too. They were kind and brave enough to share their stories with me, so that I can share them with you. And through listening and writing and processing their stories, I too became brave enough to share mine.

The running book is still under construction, a work in progress, as are we all. In the mean time, stay tuned here, to the blog and the stories that appear there about running. And more.