Surprise!

And, that's Surprise! in the literal sense.

It all started late last year when I was participating in a book launch at Copperfield's Books for Water, an anthology published by Redwood Writers. After I read my short story, "The Wrong Address," a woman came up to me, asked for my email address, and said if I heard from her, it would be to adapt my story into a play. I was flattered she liked my story, but I forgot about the incident after a few days.

Well, about a month ago, my boss came to me and said he'd received an email from a Hilary Moore asking for my contact information because she wanted to make my short story into a play.  I had been surprised when my story was accepted into the anthology because it had been rejected by several magazines, but the email from Hilary was even more surprising! After she told me the mission of the Off The Page Reader's Theater is to showcase local writers, I accepted with pride.

The last few weeks I have been walking on air.  I have let everyone I know in on this wonderful event taking place on April 24, 25, and 26, 2015. I can't wait!

I am incredibly proud of this accomplishment.  I have shared the news and the even flyer on Facebook, as well as published the information in The Redwood Writer.  Don has told all his family and friends about the play, and many of our friends will be attending.  On April 25, Don and I will go out to dinner with his brother, sister and brother in law, and then enjoy the play together.  I can't wait.

This success truly has taken me by complete Surprise! I feel more inspired to take charge of my writing life and continue putting words onto paper. In fact, just a week ago, I entered a short story, a psychological thriller, into a local writing contest. I am not much on contests, but I thought this might be kind of fun.

I have been able to cut back on the overtime at work and am taking advantage of the time to continue writing my novel in progress. I would also like to write some more short stories, as I believe I write better shorts than I do novels.

Someone suggested that I think about putting together a collection of short stories for publication.  I could do that, but I would want them all to be published elsewhere. I have four short stories that have been published, so that's a good start.

Finally, I want to encourage all my writer friends and acquaintances to be proud of all writing successes and to continue writing.

Happy Writing all!