ŷ������

I have a big announcement.

I’ve done what I��thought I would never do again.

Like someone��bitter and traumatized��after a bad breakup, I swore to my fiancé, my kids, and anyone who would listen: I WILL NEVER GIVE MY BOOKS AWAY TO A PUBLISHER EVER AGAIN.

Since the announcement from Booktrope that��we had thirty days to figure out what to do with our books, I’ve been a little stressed about exactly how to go forward professionally. Add that to preparing to merge households with my fiancé, and the usual craziness of��raising two little girls, it’s been a stressful month.

One thing I was absolutely certain of? I was not signing with another publisher. I would never again��trust my book babies to a ‘business�� that didn’t actually care about books or their authors, but pretended like they did. No thank you. Lone Ranger, that was me.

I would self-publish. Period. End of sentence.

I would trust Cliff, my best friend Jesse James, and no one else.

Well, then, Evatopia called, and I��was convinced to do what I never thought I’d ever do. I signed with a publisher.

I’ve said this many times to my author friends �� there is no reason to give away your rights unless someone comes to the table offering something you cannot do for yourself. Evatopia offered me something I couldn’t do for myself. A lot of somethings.

I’m delighted to share the following about the company and their Principal, Margery Walshaw. I think you’ll see why I was convinced.

Evatopia, Inc. is a multi-media company with divisions supporting literary management, publishing, and marketing. Clients range from��individuals to major publishing firms.

As Principal of Evatopia, Margery Walshaw has served as an editor and publicist to novelists who are published by Berkley, Simon &��Schuster, St. Martin’s Press, and Scholastic. She has managed screenwriters whose scripts have been sold to major production��companies and television networks. Evatopia Press publishes many successful indie authors, supporting their careers with guidance on��editorial, art direction, and social media.

Her articles have appeared in national newspapers and she has also worked on publicity campaigns for nationally and internationally��recognized companies. She was privileged to teach public relations at Pepperdine University in Malibu and provide countless��professionals with private instruction on book packaging, marketing, and public speaking.

Margery holds a Bachelor’s Degree from U.S.C. and returned later to earn her Master of Arts degree in Professional Writing also from��U.S.C. If ever stranded on a desert island, her one wish is to be with another writer.

I remembered something about myself during the last few weeks. I like to be part of a team. Fundamentally, I believe that teamwork and collaboration create a better product. Just like��I swore I’d never get married again, when presented with one of the best men ever made, I changed my mind. It’s the same here. Even after disillusionment and a broken-heart, when presented with something wonderful, I let myself trust once again.

I’m more excited and rejuvenated about my career than I have been for��a very long time. We’re going to re-launch all eight of my books over the course of the summer, hopefully creating some new buzz and some new readers. We’ll have new covers to share soon too.

Wish me luck, say a few prayers and cross everything. I’m buckling up �� it’s going to be a crazy few months �� but I couldn’t be happier to have a new team to share the ups and downs with �� hopefully mostly ups.

Check out Evatopia’s website to learn more:

When I was a little girl, I had four dolls. They had names, of course, and after school I would play ‘house��, pretending to be their mother. I wanted nothing more than to read, write stories and have four kids. Oh, and be married to Ken. You know, as in Barbie and Ken. Some things never change. Well, the Ken part changed, but you get the point.

Yes, some things never change.

Some things do.

Riversong is five years old. In the time between then and now, a lot has changed for me, both professionally and personally. It’s staggering, when I think of it. Divorce. Loss of close friendships. The rise and fall of my publisher. (A few weeks ago they announced they were closing at the end of May, thus leaving me thirty days to figure out what��to do with my catalogue).��This coming��Monday, my baby, Emerson, turns ten. (She was eight months old when I started working on the first draft of Riversong.) I’m closer to fifty than forty. I have a teenaged daughter that, most days, is unrecognizable from the little girl she was five years ago.

A lot of changes.

Change can be hard, but in my case, at this juncture, after some hard times, good times have come again. Last��year��I met and fell in love with a man��who seems custom-made just for me. Not perfect, but perfect for me. A widower, with some hard times of his own, although not my story to tell, we connected almost immediately. Not only did he make me laugh within two minutes of meeting, we quickly discovered we had shared values, similar interests, and although we’d both experienced great loss and disappointment, were brave enough to be out there, trying again. He’s a great father, believes in my writing, is a steady influence in every area of my life, including this difficult book business, and he has more cats than me! Yes, you read that right.��Smart in ways I’m not, he’s thoughtful, gentle and makes my stomach do those crazy dips and dives whenever he walks into a room. We’re so in love and happy together, like one of the couples in my books, that��I sometimes��wonder if he’s a figment of my writer’s imagination and I really have gone crazy. Honestly, I didn’t think this kind of love was possible, for me, at least. But it was. It is.

Oh, and he’s way better than Ken. Although, he does have incredibly thick��hair that hardly moves, just like Ken. Hmmm…but I digress.

We’re getting married in August. With this union, I gain two sons. My bonus sons come in the almost grown, but absolutely awesome variety. To have the opportunity to be their mother, no matter how or when they came to me, is a blessing. My books have been rescued by a new publisher who is willing to actually partner with me in an engaged and thoughtful way. I feel excited and hopeful about actually selling books for the��first time in a long time. We’re putting new covers on all eight of my book babies, and adding a little bonus piece at the end of each. I cannot wait to share them with you. I’m busy working on them as we speak. (Think deleted scenes, short stories of minor characters, Christmas stories �� that kind of thing).

I’ll be announcing next week the details of my new publisher, but suffice it to say, I’m very excited.

So onward, and hopefully upward, I go. For all of you who’ve hung in here through the good and bad, both as readers and friends, thank you. I have a good feeling about this year.

It does give me pause, however, to remember how low I was at certain points in the last five years, and how impossible these kind of happy events seemed at the time. I didn’t think I could ever be this happy or feel this hopeful ever again. Yet, here I am. So, wherever you are in your journey personally and professionally, please hold onto hope. Circumstances will change. It’s never too late for a second chance. The people you’ve lost, or need to lose, will be replaced by healthy and fulfilling relationships. Working hard is never in vain. Never lose hope. Never give up.

I’m off to make Emerson’s birthday cake. Who am I kidding? I’m making Ella do it, so that it doesn’t have that big earthquake-like crater in the middle. Tonight we celebrate her birthday as a new, changed, but happy family. Cheers to all.��#4kids5cats

��

Stay tuned for posts from my new blog.

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On Wednesday evening I encase my fine china in bubble wrap. The color of cream with an intricate pattern the shade of vanilla pudding, each piece is delicate in a way that makes me think of a sparrow, and I worry I might drop or crush one as I place them gently into boxes. But if I do, I will sweep up the shards and be done with it. Although lovely, they are merely an object.

I’m moving. The home I’ve shared with my girls will be given over to another family, while we take temporary custody of rooms once occupied by others. The process of moving, this dismantling of a shelter where we’ve lived and loved for five years is part of a life ever-changing. We must not hold onto a space as if it were a life. We must not care about our possessions as if they’re what makes a life. Knowing this in a way only the hardship of the last years can teach one, I’m at peace with this move, with this letting go of the old and looking toward the new. All our things, our possessions, the size of our incomes, are merely trappings of ego. They’re not a life. I know this now.

But as I perform these tasks with my hands, I’m not thinking of any of this. Instead I’m reeling from what happened earlier. While I was working on my latest manuscript, and my children were at school, and my boyfriend was at work, and I was lulled into thinking the people I love most were safe, tragedy unfolded in California. Yet another mass shooting of innocent people. Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, friends, lovers �� people who are loved like I love mine �� gone.

There was Paris just weeks ago. And the list goes on and on.

This is not a political writing about gun control or immigration or terrorists. I don’t know the answer to any of it. I certainly wish I did, but I am an ordinary woman of average intelligence, and the problems of this broken world are too complex for me to know how to fix. All I know is that evil exists. The deliverers of all that hatred, that evil, want to extinguish love. The more we love, the more they want to destroy us. There isn’t a thing we can do about it. This helplessness heightens my terror. This helplessness strengthens my anger.

As I wrap the final piece of china in bubble wrap, I think of Cliff at his office, and the girls at dinner with their father and I know that a madman with machine guns could take them all out. My precious girls who cried for Paris and this gentle man who tears up at the thought of a hurting child could be in the path of evil, and all their goodness would not be enough to fight against it. How I wish I could wrap them all in plastic bubbles. I want only to keep them safe. That’s all. I love them and people are a life. They cannot be replaced. If evil takes them, my broken heart could not be swept up and tossed into the trash bin. My heart is more like the sparrow I imagined earlier, delicate, vulnerable, and easily crushed.

Of course those I love most cannot be wrapped in plastic bubbles, or even kept inside whatever space is our current home. I understand this. We all have to live. Hiding away in fear gives evil further victory. So we must continue forth. We must do our chosen work, learn our math lessons, shop for holiday gifts, decide on ham or turkey for Christmas dinner, squabble over who cleaned the cats�� litter box last. We must plan for the future as if it were guaranteed, even as we know it is not.

I propose this, too. Might we actively love one another with words of kindness, acts of service, choosing compassion over judgment, with the idea that every moment of good chips away at evil? Could all that love somehow fight against hatred? I don’t know, of course, but I want to think so. And it certainly doesn’t cost us anything to be kinder, more forgiving, more generous to one another as a way to pay our respects to those taken by evil. May their deaths not be in vain by our actions.

And the ones we love the most? We must hold them tightly while we can, thankful for every moment we’re given, loving one another fiercely despite the hatred all around us. We are only guaranteed this moment, right now, in which to love. To waste it is to let evil win.

��

��

“I know this place like I know the calluses on my hands.��

�� Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

To explain to an outsider about our little valley is nearly impossible. I’ve tried of late, hoping to capture it in words so that my daughters and boyfriend might understand. So they might understand why I wept for hours when I heard the news that one of us had been murdered. So they might understand why the death of our teacher caused us to cry out in pain, no, not yet.

Here are the facts. I grew up in a small town in southern Oregon. We call it the Illinois Valley because the Illinois River snakes around and through, but on a map it is Cave Junction, twenty minutes from the California border.

A woman I grew up with was murdered last week in her home in Eugene by a psycho who doesn’t deserve the ink on this paper. Her name was Athena. She was a mother, daughter, sister, friend. This is not her eulogy, but she was one of the good ones. She was loved.

Days earlier our beloved acting teacher passed away. We didn’t know until the day after we heard about Athena. His name was Rick Ferris. He was a son, father, grandfather, brother, friend. This is not his eulogy, but he was one of the good ones. He was loved.

They were loved by us. By the Valley Kids.

To lose them both in the same week is nearly impossible to fathom.

I try to explain it to my kids.

My town was so small, I say, that everyone knew everyone and there was nothing else but us. No internet. No cable television. No neighboring town. Just us. We were children together in this little logging town no one cared about, yet we cared fiercely for one another. We can tell you what road each of us lived on, what cars we drove, who loved who. We cheered for our football team that almost never won a homecoming game. We swam the river together. We met on dirt roads and built bonfires. At night we watched a billion stars dance across the sky.

The river spots are known by our nicknames: Six mile, Mars, The Forks, Small Falls.

Other schools in our district called us hicks, dummies, losers.

But we knew differently. We knew because our teachers made sure. The teachers who stayed. The ones who dedicated an entire career to the children of a place no one had ever heard of or cared to hear of, and because of this we knew we were important, not invisible like the rest of the world might have us believe. Rick Ferris was one of those teachers.

Now we’re scattered, blown away from our little town into adulthood. We grew up and moved on, had families of our own, jobs, mortgages, marriages, divorces, and remarriages. Some of us have lost children. Many have lost parents. Some of us are gone. And with each loss, we weep for one another even though we are mostly only in touch via social media. Because it isn’t as simple as, “an old friend that I keep up with through Facebook�� passed away. When you’re from a place like our valley, we are kindred spirits for all time. We will always be Valley Kids. We will always be united against the world.

Then, there is the problem of time.

When I close my eyes, it is 1986 and I am in our high school cafeteria. It’s dinner break during dress rehearsal week for our school play. Athena is laughing, propped up against the orange wall that Mr. Ferris says is the color of�� baby poo. There’s the smell of Dairy Queen fries. Athena and I vow not to eat the fries. We’re on a diet. Mr. Ferris is perched on a ladder fiddling with a light. Journey is playing on someone’s boom box. We are innocent. Life is before us. We cannot imagine the tragedy that awaits.

And I wonder, as I type through my tears, how can it be now and they’re gone? Why? Why? Why?

I cannot know, of course. I understand this. The mystery of time, the loss of innocence, the pain of forced goodbyes is simply a matter of living. But I’m the type that tries to find meaning in all human experience and I suffer for it. I do know this, however. We must love with no thought of consequence or fear. Yes, we might have to say goodbye, but no love given or received is ever wasted.

Perhaps love is like a midnight sky seen from a porch in the middle of August, so vast and encompassing that it sustains us in our darkest moments. Perhaps, too, the stars that shine as brightly as our memories are a reminder that we must love one another while we can. Say the words you’re too shy to say. Tell your friends and family how much you love them, without expectation. Tell them what they mean to you now, not tomorrow. Reach out to that person you’ve lost touch with, but think of so often.

Love hard and fierce. Love like a Valley Kid.

��

I’m thrilled to announce one of my former students has his second book out! It is a captivating and delightful book about a Cockapoo named Princess Sydney, and her sometimes annoying brother, Buddy. My girls loved the first one in the series and love this one even more. It will make you laugh, even if you’re only a kid at heart.

**

Misadventures of Princess Sydney: Have Parentals, Will Travel is the second book in the Princess Sydney series. Readers call Minich’s writing, “fun-filled,�� “insightful and creative,�� and “heartwearming.�� ��If you are between the ages of 8-12, a dog lover, or a kid at heart, this book is for you! You can find Chris’s books on Amazon () or BarnesandNoble.com ()

“You’ll have a great time,�� said the Parentals. But Princess Sydney knows better! America’s favorite crafty cockapoo reluctantly embarks on summer vacation, along with her bumbling brother, Buddy. She expected chaos, but she she never expected to lose her cool when the trip takes an unplanned turn. Silly boy dogs, leftover pizza, and fair maidens are just a few of the bumps along their travels that will keep readers laughing and in love in this second book in the Princess Sydney series. As Sydney would tell you, “Why wouldn’t it?��

Chris Minich is a writer living in Snoqualmie Washington. He enjoys spending time with his wife and their two precocious dogs, Sydney and Buddy. Chris is also a die-hard Seattle Seahawks fan. You can find out more about Chris and the Princess Sydney series on his website, , twitter, @cockapoosyd, Instagram, or Pinterest:

Today I welcome G. Elizabeth Kretchmer as my guest blogger. Her book of short stories releases this coming Sunday. Please help me wish her the best.

Enjoy.

**

Have you ever dreamed of running away?

I’ve taken off for a better life, twice. Sort of.

The first time, I escaped from my home when I was three years old, skedaddling down our city sidewalk as fast as my short stubby legs would go and making it only as far as the two-story brownstone, a few doors down, before my father caught up with me and scooped me up in his arms. I don’t remember why I left. I only remember half-crying and half-laughing as I led Dad on the chase, and only resisting half-heartedly when he caught me, which of course was what I’d secretly wanted all along.

The second time was about fifteen years ago. I was an exhausted mother of three boys and the wife of a hard-working businessman. We were living in the East Bay (San Francisco area) where I had no close family and only a few friends. Our boys were what the experts call��spirited, and the household chaos had become too much for me. (I think of myself as a peace-seeking missile, which isn’t compatible with a house full of energetic boys, which is why I’ve always insisted that all our pets be female.) On that particular evening, the kids were wildly running around the house, throwing balls and diapers and who knows what else��everywhere, and making banshee sounds that plucked at my fraying nerves, and completely ignoring my requests and commands to calm down. When my husband came home from a long day at work, I said that’s it.

“I’m leaving. I can’t take it anymore.��

I picked up a duffle bag with a few personal belongings and took off.

We can’t leave our little darlings

��.��

Whether or not we buy into stereotyped gender roles, there are biological and psychological reasons that drive most women (and females of other species) to love and care for their families and stay with them to provide for and protect them.

Some of the reasons are hormonal, especially post-partum. But the bonding extends well beyond those nursing months or years.

“We want to read that bedtime story. We think we’re the only ones who can pack the right school lunch. And we long to be the ones greeting the school bus in the afternoon if we can arrange our work schedules to do so,�� wrote author��.

Abandoning our children would go against the very grain of our souls and our innate natures. Which is why, when we hear about other mothers leaving their children,����far more harshly “than fathers who do the same.��

We don’t believe in ourselves

For millennia we have been taught we are the weaker sex, the lesser sex. Or just that we are less, period.��On an intellectual basis we don’t believe this. On an intellectual basis we tell ourselves not to be so self-critical. But we still judge ourselves by how much money we make or our job titles, often comparing ourselves against men. We still judge ourselves by how we look or how clean our homes are, comparing ourselves to��other women. We judge ourselves by the birthday parties we throw for our children or our husbands or our elderly parents. And by just about any other judgment markers we can come up with.

Our behaviors, and our beliefs, contradict our intellectual thoughts because of long-term evolution. These beliefs are hard-wired into our brains.

“It turns out there’s an area of your brain that’s assigned the task of negative thinking,�� says��, MD, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of��The Female Brain.��“It’s judgmental. It says ‘I’m too fat�� or ‘I’m too old.�� It’s a barometer of every social interaction you have. It goes on red alert when the feedback you’re getting from other people isn’t going well.��

Which means we’re too fat or too stupid or too old or whatever to run away successfully.

We have needs that need to be met

Running away often means losing our identities, almost like going into witness protection. And remember Maslow? The��guy who said we have five levels of needs: physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization? If we uproot ourselves, disturbing whatever self-esteem we have as well as any sense of belongingness, by leaving behind partners, parents, siblings, and friends, we’ll slip way down the pyramid of needs to the most basic levels. Who wants that? It’s like Chutes and Ladders; nobody wants to slide back to the bottom by pulling up roots and starting over.

We stay because it’s safer. Thomas Fuller may have said, “some have been thought brave��because they were afraid��to run away,�� I think he had it all wrong. I think running away involves far more courage than staying.

We’ve��gotta eat

Speaking of needs��

Stay-at-home moms might be more educated and employable nowadays when we��first make a decision to forgo our��careers, but the longer we��stay at home, the less employable we��become. Even in this so-called enlightened time, there is a stigma attached to women who have taken time off to raise a family. “It is deeply and firmly entrenched, and it’s got to go away,�� said��, a former NBC News producer who experienced the stigma first hand.

And being able to pay her own bills, if she were to suddenly become single, isn’t��a slam dunk for working women, either. Income parity is still a real issue.��, a nonprofit organization with a mission to expand opportunities for women and business, reports that “women have come a long way but are still not at parity.��Women will need to work more than 70 additional days each year to catch up to men.��

Obviously there are plenty of single women out there who are making ends meet (or better) and my hat goes off to them. But for those who have been in a relationship and��are now contemplating a break, the financial consideration can be a huge obstacle.

We’ve also gotta watch our backs

While the emotional duo of guilt and shame are plenty powerful, there’s nothing like fear to convince a woman to stay put. It’s a crazy world out there. While Cheryl Strayed survived (parts of) the Pacific Crest Trail on her own, the idea of leaving the safety of home and venturing out alone��can be frightening financially and otherwise.

And, counterintuitively, it’s even more frightening��for the abused woman to leave home because this is the most dangerous time for her.

“When I started to, you know, wriggle out from his control, that’s a very, very dangerous time and that’s when domestic violence is about power and control and when you start to change that dynamic, you know you can really, really raise a lot of problems,�� wrote author��, whose partner tried to kill her. “So you have to be very, very careful.��

We��believe��we are the saviors

We aren’t just nurturers. We are saviors. We are the ones who can, or should, fix problems for other people, right? We are the ones who listen when others are hurting. We are the ones who loan money when others are broke. We are the ones who stay up late making lasagna for those who are grieving and go to bat for those who have been wronged.

Giving unto others becomes the true��calling for many of us. It becomes a key part of our identity. It makes us feel good; it feeds our souls.��Even when think we need to fix the very problems that make us want to run away in the first place.

Memoirist����couldn’t leave her abusive husband because, as his wife, she knew it was up to her to “help him overcome the years of abuse and neglect and pain. [She] could help Conor better than any woman on earth [and] make him whole.��

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There are probably as many reasons we don’t��run away as there are women who dream about leaving, and I became so fascinated with the idea of why women run away–or why they don’t–that I began to write about it. Several years back, I pitched a novel to a male agent about a woman who took a two-week sabbatical from her difficult family (and no, this wasn’t intended to be autobiographical). During that sabbatical, she began to question whether or not she wanted to return home. The agent looked at me when I’d finished my pitch like I’d lost my mind.

“No woman would��ever��do that,�� he said.��

“So the premise of your novel is faulty from the start.��

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh in his face or cry from his ignorant arrogance. I guess he never read Anne Tyler’s��. Or Kate Chopin’s��, which shows what can tragically happen when a woman doesn’t leave, even when she should.

Of course, the agent was right when it came to my own situation. On that night I left my family, I drove for about an hour, heading east toward Lake Tahoe, until my cell phone rang. It was my husband calling.

“We’d like you to come home.��

The truth was: I didn’t really want to leave my darlings. I didn’t want to start over. I didn’t want to deal with the terminal guilt, shame, and regret that would invariably haunt me if I kept on going. And I certainly had no confidence I could just start over and survive. The truth was: I just wanted a break. And while an hour or two wasn’t quite enough, it was long enough to diffuse my internal bomb, for that night anyway. I turned the car around at the next exit, and I’m still here, nearly fifteen years later.

I never ran away again. But I do write about it. I imagine the fantastic, the liberating, and/or even the tragic possibilities that could happen to other women who do, or who don’t, run away.

��

**

G. Elizabeth Kretchmer has an MFA in Fiction from Pacific University. Her��new short story collection,����gives voice to��ordinary women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, and some of the reasons they might want to run away. She’ll be celebrating its release at 4:00pm this Sunday, October 25, at University Bookstore in Bellevue (990 102nd Ave NE, Bellevue WA 98004) with poetry and dramatic readings. ��She is also the author of��, a novel. Her short fiction, essays, and freelance work have appeared in the��New York Times,��High Desert Journal,��Silk Road Review,��SLAB, and other publications. When she’s not writing, she’s facilitating therapeutic and wellness writing workshops throughout the community, having served cancer and domestic violence survivors, yoga practitioners, and stressed-out corporate America. ��You can learn more about her at��.

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I will tell you, I came to live out LOUD.�� ~Émile Zola

I’m not an athlete. I was the kid picked last for sports in grade school. I’m a slow runner. I’m short, coming in at barely 5��2��, and what you’d call more on the curvy side than skinny side, despite constant dieting for the last thirty-five years. I’m forty-six years old and have hated my figure for a large portion of it. Although fitness has been an important part of my life, working out 5-6 times a week for the last ten years, I’ve been hypercritical of my body and chose exercise for vanity reasons, not necessarily health.

But all that changed this year. I did something I never in my wildest imagination thought I could or would do.

I completed a Spartan Trifecta, which means I finished all three types of Spartan races in a calendar year. I did the Sprint in San Francisco, the Super here in my hometown of Seattle, and the Beast in Sun Peaks, Canada. I’m not going to lie, all three races, especially the Beast, were brutal. There were moments during the seven hours it took me to complete 14 miles of mountain and 34 obstacles that I wasn’t sure I could finish. I’ve never had the physical experience of not knowing if my legs would continue to hold me up, let alone climb another foot. But they did. It wasn’t pretty or graceful, but I finished. Afterwards I was bruised, cut, scraped, sore, relieved and proud.

For those unfamiliar with Spartan, here is the description of the races from their website.

There are three main types of Spartan Races.

For beginners we recommend the . Spartan’s shortest courses are 3+ miles and 20+ obstacles. Complete the race at your own pace. If you fail an obstacle along the way, you owe us 30 burpees before continuing on.

Ready for more? The is 8+ miles, 24+ obstacles, and often hosted on a tougher terrain.

The hardest of the three races is the : 12+ miles and 30+ obstacles. We’ll leave the challenges of the course to your imagination.

I’ve been asked many times in the last several months, why? Why do something so hard? The answer is not what you might think. It is not to look better. It is not for bragging rights. Although both are wonderful outcomes of training and participating in these races, and what I might have cared about when I was younger, that’s not why I do it.

If I was simply worried about vanity, there are many ways to stay fit without crawling through mud under barbed wire. Bragging rights are nice, of course, but it’s not enough motivation to have kept me going those last two brutal miles in Sun Peaks, Canada. They certainly weren’t enough reason to face my fear of heights while climbing over a twelve-foot-wall.

This is why I do it.

I do it because I have two daughters and I want them to know they can do anything they set their minds to. I do it because they believe I can. I do it to make them proud. I do it so they have a healthy role model in this “never too rich or too thin�� culture.

I do it because one hundred years ago women couldn’t vote or play sports. I do it because my grandmother died of a stroke at 62, and because my other grandmother couldn’t do one push-up when she was my age. I do it because I’m not going out that way.

I do it because these races scare me more than anything I’ve ever done �� that’s saying something because I write novels for a living- and we should do stuff that frightens us because that’s when we grow into the people we’re meant to be.

I do it because the man I love thinks strong is sexy and acts like I’m Superwoman when we cross that finish line. I do it because our shared experience makes our relationship richer, stronger, and more intimate. I do it for the look in his eyes that tells me he knows how deeply I have to dig to find the courage and strength to do these races and that he loves me all the more for it.

I do it because my mother has a spinal cord injury and fights a Beast-like mountain every day of her life without complaint. I do it because she can’t. I do it because I can, with the knowledge that my healthy body, no matter its cosmetic flaws, is a gift.

I do it because I want to live out loud.

Somewhere along the way, facing one of the many difficult obstacles, or maybe mile twelve, it became bigger than just a race. It became the symbol of all my fears, disappointments, betrayals, and losses. With every inch of conquered ground, I became the conquering heroine. I became a badass. I became the person I’m meant to be �� living out loud.

I do it because I live out loud.

��

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Yesterday, after an intense couple of weeks to get it ready, my house went up for sale. I moved here five summers ago with my now ex-husband. For the last three years my daughters and I have lived here as a happy threesome. In that time we’ve had three Christmas mornings, eight birthday parties, countless sleepovers and several book launch parties here. There were home cooked dinners, wine with friends, cuddles on the couch watching our favorite shows. This was our life and we loved it. This was our home and we loved it.

And now we must let go. It isn’t easy. Not because it’s a possession or status symbol or even because it’s beautiful. No, it’s that this is our home, and home is where one feels safe. Despite the emotional and financial hardships that came with my divorce, the girls and I have had our home and one another for comfort and support.

Regardless, it is the right time to sell. The practical side of things dictates this, mostly �� the market is hot and all that, plus I can’t afford to keep it on my writer salary. But there’s the mental health portion of this as��well. In order to move forward, sometimes we have to let go of symbols of the past.

We all know life is a series of letting and go and pulling in. You can’t have one without the other. Yet, sometimes I wonder how we all walk around doing normal activities like shopping for apples when we have so much loss. But we do. You do. And it inspires me.

When I saw the photographs of the rooms where we have loved and lived go live on the Realtor site, I felt a sharp pang in the middle of my chest, reminding me of all I’ve lost. The life I wanted and thought I would have was not to be. God knows, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I took a lot of risks, both personally and professionally. I trusted people I probably shouldn’t have. I tried things and people that didn’t work. As a consequence, on paper things don’t look so great right now. On paper it looks like I’ve lost enough that I should be crouched in a corner with my face buried in my hands.

But here’s what I know. The risks I’ve taken will somehow lead to the right path. There was not a word written �� not a hard decision made �� that will not somehow lead to something more beautiful than I can imagine.

Because no matter how the numbers look, I have spent the last ten years doing what I love, raising my children and writing. Yes, the end of my marriage was painful, but necessary. Was it risky to give up the corner office in order to write eight novels? Hell yes. But without these risks, I would not have a chance for the life I dream of.

So I’m letting go of the house. I’m taking even more risks with my career, knowing that giving up is not an option. I’m embracing the love offered by a phenomenal man instead of crouching in fear. Yes, you read that right. I met someone last February. Someone that fits just right. Someone to love, to see. It is better than I could have ever imagined.

Love �� that’s really it, my friends �� the only thing that matters. Whether the cars, houses, bestseller lists, bank accounts are either gone or there, love remains. Love is why we’re doing all this hard stuff in the first place. To love and be loved, to see and be seen �� this is the best of it, the sweetest of all human experience. I had it with my girls, friends, and family all along, which gave me the strength to keep pushing forward during the darkest moments, yet I hoped for a love like the ones I write about. I almost gave up hope �� thinking perhaps there really was a limit on how much love one person could receive. And then, out of the proverbial clear blue sky, this man was delivered to me at my lowest point. He held out his arms and I held out mine, despite how truly scary it was to be that vulnerable and it turned into love �� the kind that continues to obliterate the pain in my chest and makes me brave and beautiful and joyous.

So this fact is true: without the risks I’ve taken, I would not know this love. So there you have it.

Do I know the future? Of course not. But I will be brave, despite how frightening it is to run headfirst into the unknown.

Love is the opposite of fear and I will not crouch. Because, ultimately, we can crouch or we can rise. I choose rising, every time.

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