I’m taking some time this week to celebrate a milestone, and I’m thinking about all the beautiful souls who helped me get there. Please enjoy one from the archives.

Sometimes people don’t fully realize the impact they have on others, because how do you measure the ripple effects of inspiration?

Yesterday, I saw the Angel Oak for the first time. It’s at least 1,500 years old.

In order to take the picture, I had to keep backing up. Back, back, back… then I tripped over this:

And I still didn’t get the whole tree in frame. Needless to say, the Angel Oak is really huge. Majestic is more like it.

When I was in high school, I took an honors English class my junior and senior years, and I was fortunate to have the same teacher two years in a row. Our very first assignment: Go home and hug a  tree. The word spread quickly. We lived in a small, conservative town where people just didn’t go around hugging trees. What on earth was this woman teaching? The skeptics wanted to know.

I embraced the assignment (and the tree) and documented the experience in my writing journal – part two of the assignment. I wrapped my arms around the sturdy trunk outside my house and instantly felt the connection. I felt the energy, the life. It made me feel… happy.

We wrote a lot in that class. During those two years, I learned to make the connection between my thoughts, feelings and life experiences. As I wrote by hand (which is still the best way to do it, in my humble opinion) I connected with something bigger than myself. The higher power that guides my life today.

Once you establish a connection, it’s easy to recognize when it’s there. And when it isn’t. You can’t force it. But you can remain open and trust that what you are seeking you will find. You can trust that it will find you.

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I have a completed, edited manuscript.

Mind if I repeat that?

I have a completed, edited manuscript.

I’m no longer writing a book. I’ve written it. It’s no longer a draft. It is done. 

If you’re wondering how that feels, well, to me it feels like I’ve slammed a couple shots of Jager. Like I’m standing outside myself with a really good buzz and no bar tab (and no hangover) inside a strange world of awesome.

This is not the end of the road. It’s a milestone. And if you’re like me and used to running, sometimes it’s difficult to stop and rest. Even on the day I found out we were having a baby girl, I celebrated the beautiful, sunshiny day by driving from one end of town to the other, keeping an eye on the clock.

Yesterday, my family and our good friends rode our bikes from their house in Mount Pleasant to the county park. Our ages range from 39 to 2, and as we traveled along the sidewalks of a busy road, I joked we looked like a pack of ducks when we crossed the intersections. Cars yielded and gave us the right-of-way as the eight of us quacked, quacked, quacked on by. I don’t think those cars wanted to kill us, but they certainly didn’t want to wait either.

Most of us don’t enjoy sitting idle, and there’s a danger in doing that for too long. For example, after we visited the park and began our two mile trek back, we stopped at a yogurt shop. Oh my golly, I’ve never been to a yogurt shop like this. It smelled like what I imagine heaven smells like (or Willy Wonka’s place). Warm waffle cones and dozens of yogurt flavors (self-serve!) and even more toppings. I’m glad I’m pregnant, because no one even blinked at the amount of pure, authentic goodness I poured into my cup. (They charge by the pound. The yogurt, not me.)

We sat outside and enjoyed our treats. And then, Shawn said, “Okay, let’s go.” He saw the looks on our faces. If we had sat there one minute longer, we would’ve slipped into yogurt-induced comas and not wanted to complete the trek to the finish line.

So, I’m eager to keep going, but it was nice to take some time to soak it all in. Here’s how I did it:

~Took a bubble bath

~Took a nap

~Sat in the backyard in a camping chair and watched Shawn do yard work, while Blake rolled around in an empty, dirty, plastic swimming pool.

~Made lasagna.

~Cried when I watched E.T. (At the end when he tells Elliott, “I’ll be right here.” Boo hoo hoo hoo)

~Laughed when I watched The Switch with Jennifer Aniston (love her) and Jason Bateman (still so fine).

~And took a snapshot in my mind when my 5 1/2 year old’s eyes lit up and said, “That means you’re an author?” I was tempted to say, “Well, I still have to get published.” But no. Stop it, inner critic. Just stop it. You have not been invited to this party. And I replied, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Do you remember to pause and celebrate your successes — those milestones that make the journey so sweet? How do you do it? 

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When I emailed Kelly Love Johnson this week, asking if she’d do me the honor of editing my book, I meant, you know, a little later. When you’re free. I didn’t think she’d say I can get started right now. And that within the hour she’d map out a plan to spend the next month or so whipping the manuscript into shape.

Her plan does not involve me sitting back and eating bon bons. Or if you saw my Facebook status yesterday, eating cake icing straight out of the container. She edits. I write.

And so, it’s time to flip that switch in my brain that allowed me to work in TV newsrooms for years and meet tight deadlines every single day. It’s time to unleash my inner bad mamma jamma. That’s where you come in.

In the comments section, please provide one or all of the following:

a) a song that inspires you. One that makes you dance in the kitchen or play air drums in your car. I’ve already added Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine (thanks, Kelly) and Eye of the Tiger (thanks, Rocky).

b) an inspirational/motivational/get- er-done kind of quote. I shall decorate my work space with them.

c) someone I can channel (real or fictional) when my inner bad mamma jamma fails me. I have Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights on standby. I need more backup.

Okay? Ready set go! (and thank you!)

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It’s almost 6:30 in the morning, and I just closed a document containing a chapter of my book. The last sentence on the page made me cry. They weren’t sad tears. In fact, I took it as a good sign. If something I’ve written makes me cry, that means I’ve hit on something very important.

The words on the page weren’t raw emotion. In fact, this particular chapter has been scrutinized and edited countless times. So I’m pretty sure those words need to stay.

I’m not going to lie. Writing a memoir is hard. It’s an act of remembering the details and identifying why those details are significant to the story. An act of deleting scenes that are important in the grand scheme of my life, but don’t support the main themes in the story.

It is a story, after all. And while a true story, it must be crafted like (or almost like) a novel. It must have an arc. I must identify my desire line– what I really wanted. The initiating incident– the scene that gets the story started. And how the story ended– what I got and what I learned. For this story to work, I must identify the big “why.” And “why does anyone care?”

One day, I’ll be able to rise above my book-writing process, see it as a whole and explain it in a way that may be helpful to other writers embarking on a similar journey. But for now, I’m learning as I go.

This week, we heard from two amazing women taking brave steps forward. One says she wants to feed her soul. The other is searching for her thing. I’ve found my thing. Whether it’s my thing for right now, or the rest of my life, I don’t know. That’s not important. My thing doesn’t always feel like a mountaintop. It’s downright exhausting and emotionally draining sometimes. I seek balance daily, but I usually fall short of obtaining it. So how do I know?

Because it feels worth it.

Have a great weekend, friends. And thank you for the part you play in making it all worth it.

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photo: ©istockphoto.com/marekuliasz

We plotted our course on the map. Take I-40 across the country. Make a right in California. Head north on I-5. Arrive in Oregon. This route promised the best weather, and it looked like the safest way to go. But then I learned mom doesn’t like to drive in the rain. Or in the dark. Or through mountains.

This was going to be a long trip.

That’s a clip from my memoir-in-progress. And yes, my mom is a main character in the story. And yes, she knows. And even better, she has encouraged me every step of the way. Except that one time, when I flew to California to attend a writing retreat when I was four months pregnant. She wasn’t thrilled about that. Did I mention she doesn’t like to fly, either?

But last year, when I introduced my story to literary agents at a conference (just a two-hour drive, one that did not require traveling in the rain, the dark, or through mountains) she supported me.

The story isn’t really about us, although our relationship is a huge part of it. It’s about why I left my career in TV news. It’s about redefining success and making the tough choices to be happy. When life calls us to step through the doors of courage, it’s often a solitary journey. We have to do those things on our own. But it helps to know we aren’t alone. That people who love us are standing (cheering) in our corner.

Who’s in your corner?

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