The train is pulling into the station. After the 8-week journey, the first ever Write by the Rails Endless Possibilities blog tour has reached its final stop. (Fear Not – We’ll have plenty of recap thoughts with members in the next few weeks.) Tonight, I welcome an author who I think writes emotions in a way that connects with people in a very deep, meaningful way. Please welcome Tamela Ritter!
_
It seems sort of fate that I would end the blog tour on the Kelly’s blogs, both Stacia’s on Tuesday and here today.
A few months before I had been there at the Manassas coffee shop, Ground Central Station with them and Dan Verner, vice-president of Write by the Rails when Stacia suggested we start a blog tour. We all shrugged, said that sounded like fun, and maybe we should do that… someday. By the time we left the shop, Stacia had created banners, spreadsheets and had a handful of people already signed up.
I learned pretty quickly, the Kelly’s don’t say things. They do things. Make things happen. They made this whole tour happen. I will forever be grateful for that, I don’t think I really got what blogging was about or could be until I started this tour.
It also seems fate that it would end this week. It was this week a year ago that I had my Best Week Ever. My first (and only so far) book, From These Ashes was published.
It’s been a crazy year. I’ve had some great times, opportunities and adventures. There have been disappointments and lessons learned too, but that’s what life is, yeah? We couldn’t get better if we were perfect the first go out, just ask Harper Lee.
The book has gotten some great reviews and a few less than great (not linking those, obviously–you know who you are!), it has gotten some good press and word of mouth. I am humbled and awed.
Of course, in all the interviews and Q&As and whatnot, there was the question–usually the last one–of “What’s next?” And finally, the time for pithy and silly answers is over. Now is the time to take that question seriously.
Seriously? I have no idea. I just know I don’t want to be Pete*.
Pete was a good friend of mine when I was in my early 20s. I meet him in Spokane Washington and was the first person I met who was originally from Virginia. I know this because in the three years we spent a lot of time (mostly in bars) together, I’d say 75% of his stories started: “This one time at Radford…”
No matter what adventures we had, what shenanigans we got up to, nothing was going to surpass the time he had in college. Even back then, I thought that was a sad way to live. I don’t know if he still clings to that, but I like to imagine that he’s found things to replace those four years he spent at Radford University back in the late 80s. Sometimes I like to imagine that maybe 22% of his stories now start: “This one time with Tamela…”
For me, no matter how amazing the experience of this year was, how still proud of that one book I am, I don’t want it to be the only story I tell, the only good year I get.
A friend of mine shared with me some knowledge she got from a professor when she went for her MFA, they said that you have your whole life to write the first book and a year max for the next one. That convinced me… that I’m glad I didn’t go to grad school for writing. Who needs that kind of pressure?!
The truth is, the world is not waiting for my next endeavor. It’s okay, they’re not waiting for yours either. That doesn’t mean they won’t be thrilled when it arrives. There just no schedule to these things.
As long as my next work doesn’t take the lifetime that From These Ashes did, I’ll be happy. And this time, when I get discouraged or self-hating, I’ll have the memory of this time to keep me going and the friends that I’ve made to cheer me on.
Right?
RIGHT?!?!
*Not his real name. I change the names of most real friends and family, whether the subject is complimentary or not. They didn’t know when making my acquaintance that I would one day be a writer and would use them for fodder or examples.
***
Tamela J. Ritter was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, her debut novel From These Ashes was published in March 2013 by Battered Suitcase Press. She now lives and works in Haymarket, Va. You can find her on Twitter or on Facebook.
