Seventeen Years of Support

I think it goes without saying that I’m a writer. As such, I feel an obligation to make my posts related to writing. It seems to me that’s what people are most interested in. Aspiring writers are given a window into the truth about breaking into to the biz while seasoned veterans find another person to empathize with. For those who know me on a personal level, they’re often surprised at the amount of heartache that goes along with this career I’ve chosen. In fact, at this stage in the game, it’s safe to say there’s more heartache than joy.

Today, though, it’s all about the joy. Today is a day to celebrate. You see, seventeen years ago today, I married this really cute nineteen year old kid that made my heart race every time I saw him. I was just twenty years old, and I thought there was something funny about the fact that neither of us would’ve been old enough to drink champagne at our wedding reception. If we’d had one, that is. Rather than do the big wedding thing, we went to the special services division of city hall and “got hitched” as my husband loves to tell everyone. It goes without saying our friends and family was shocked. It took a while for his parents to forgive us for that one. Now, seventeen years and two kids later, the couple no one expected to make it continues to beat the odds. I suppose I can’t blame the doubters. We were young, and I’m not sure I mentioned this before, but we’d only known each other six months when we did this.

You might be wondering what my wedding anniversary has to do with writing. The answer is everything. While I’ve considered myself a writer for a long time, I’ve only seriously pursued this career for nine years. I wrote my first novel in 2003, and it came out in 2006. From there, it’s been a never ending series of ups and downs. Through all of this, my wonderful husband has been there for me. He’s the one who’s listened me to complain about the catch twenty-two of getting an agent. You can’t get one if you’re not published, but you can’t be published without one. He’s listened to my whoops of joy when I succeed and he’s the one who’s dried my tears when I failed. Not only has he been my sounding board and shoulder to lean on, but he’s been closely involved with my work. He’s the one who designed my web site and maintains it. He’s the one who updates it when I ask and always finds a way to make my off the wall suggestions work. He’s the one who recovered more than four hundred pages of a novel I was working on when my computer crashed, and I thought I’d lost it all. He’s the one who designed three of the four book covers for my novels. He’s even made and had framed posters of all of these book covers. He’s designed and printed my business cards and countless other off the wall promotional items I’ve dreamed up.

If I have my way, my writing career will continue to grow as will the role he serves in making it a success. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Seventeen years down and a lifetime of success and happiness to go.