I don’t remember that. But leave it to Mom to have saved the evidence. (See the above picture from My Book About Me by me and Dr. Seuss.)

When I was twenty-eight, my husband asked, “If you could do anything without regard to money, what would you do?” I told him, “Be a children’s writer.”

I do remember that. Vividly.

And that is what I set out to accomplish. I was focused and motivated. I had a concrete goal: to publish a children’s novel by the time I turned forty. I devoted my thirties to developing my fiction-writing skills and with the help of many supportive guides and companions, my first novel was published… when I was thirty-nine.

Yes, it took eleven years. (Thirty, if you go back to my original childhood desire.) For any who might ask, “Does it have to take that long?” I respond, “Is that long?” The longer I live, the shorter eleven years seems. I’ve been told it’s actually the average amount of time it takes people who commit to writing a book. So, I’m average. Happily.

And I happily continue to pursue my dream of being a writer—by writing. Something. Every day. It might be personal journaling. It might be my next novel or picture book manuscript. It might be revising a single sentence. It might be a love note to one of my daughters.

While there have been dry periods—and painful seasons of questioning whether I even am a writer—the need to put words on a page, to express myself and to connect with other human beings through this medium has never gone away. I love what poet Mark Nepo says: “We are told to become a noun, and the vitality of life is in staying a verb.”

I no longer ask, “Am I writer?” and instead allow myself to write (whether anyone else will see it or not). I am whole-heartedly committed to remaining a verb: to write, rest, speak, play, grow, work, wonder. I am taking small steps every day to emanate little rays of light in a shadowy world. It’s what we are each called to do in our own illuminating, important way.