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As I embark towards the end of a long road that took many years for me to travel, I can feel the fear rise up within me. I’m about to be finished my memoir. I’ll need an editor to look at it, but it’s like part of who I am is that I”m “writing a memoir.” It’s like this lifelong journey that isn’t supposed to end, but I’ve decided it must end. This is insane! Truth be told, there will eventually have to be a second memoir because I ultimately decided to end when my mom passed away right before I moved to California with the kids. The story was incredibly epic and huge, and I just could not manage it anymore. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure where the story ended. So I’ve ended it where it needed to end and added memories of growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s. I feel good about it, yet I’m freaked out to the max about what comes next.

Tonight I’m working on a pitch and researching other books to compare mine to. It’s a daunting task to figure out what the story is within the story. I think I do know now though. I’m not quite finished yet, but I feel I’m close enough now to finally embark on the next steps. To top everything off, my friend whom I’ve been in a small online writing group for quite some time actually signed me up for a consultation with an agent at a writer’s conference I won’t even be at. The Kauai Writer’s Conference. I’m so sad I couldn’t make it, but I just couldn’t pull enough money together. Even with no kids at home, I’m on a semi-fixed income because I decided to semi-retire early, and I jokingly say I’ll have to work part-time for the rest of my life because that will be the savings and/or pension I could never afford to put money into — because of all the kids! No regrets though. My friend told me to send her a pitch and any info I’d want to relay to said agent, and I don’t even know if this will work out. The agent might not go for it at all. Judy is also pitching for another member of our small “memoir” group, another Judy who is 97 years old. I kid you not. And she’s sharp as a whip and a wonderful storyteller and writer. She wanted to go to Kauai, but she had to admit she’s slowed down a bit. Judy said she used to be an agent for actors, so she knew how to “sell” people.

But what if this agent thinks we’re all stark raving mad? Oh well, I tell myself. It’s okay. If I attempted to pitch my own book, I’d probably become chatty Cathy blabbering away about stuff because of fear. Maybe it was better this way, or perhaps it’s best to just send the query letters and have a book proposal prepared. I’ve begun the whole process as I end the revisions stage of my almost finished memoir. Notice I haven’t said “finished” memoir yet? I’m afraid to say it’s finished.

One way or another, I will get this book out into the world.