I had an epiphany. Everything suddenly made sense. I wasn't happy because I wasn't writing. I wasn't doing what I needed to be doing with my life. In that moment, I realized what I wanted to be. Now I just had to figure out what I needed to do to get there.

I was overwhelmed by this revelation. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I still wasn't sure how to go about doing that. Joe had provided some advice. He talked about attending conferences, networking, etc. I'll admit it, I had my doubts. Mostly doubts about myself. This whole process has been a series of baby steps. It took two years between the first two steps. Looking back on it, I'm impressed that it only took two months between steps two and three.

In January 2005, I looked up Twilight Tales, a local fiction reading series based in Chicago. Joe had mentioned being involved with this group and had a story in their anthology, SPOOKS! I checked out there website and joined their Yahoo group and started reading the posts on their list-serv. It seemed like a place where I might learn a thing or two.

I also decided to attend the Love is Murder conference in February 2005. The conference is geared to mystery writers but since it was local, I figured it was as good a place as any to start. It was a great experience. I met so many people and learned so much from the panels I attended. Twilight Tales sponsored an open mic at the conference and I read a portion of the story that I had worked on in Joe's class. I received a positive response and got some good feedback from several published authors which sent me home with an enthusiam for writing that I never thought possible.

(To be continued...)