A TIME TO SPEAK LIFE

​“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” 
​Proverbs 18:21
 
It was such a simple gift. A bookmark. But it’s the perfect backdrop for this month’s blog, SPEAK LIFE. My sister gave me this bookmark to celebrate a new chapter I had just began in my life. After 21 years, I accepted an early retirement package from Verizon. Leaving the company was something I had been planning to do for several years before. I always said that when my children graduated from high school, I’d leave ‘Ma Bell’ and pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a published author. Little did I know that five months after their graduation (they’re twins), the company offer would offer early retirement packages to everyone in my department. I accepted, and the following April I was gone.
 
Wouldn’t it be great if this paragraph began ‘My first book was published six months later’? But, life doesn’t always work like that. I spent the remainder of that year traveling and setting up the perfect home office.  Not your traditional shopaholic, I must stay, purchasing office equipment was exhilarating. Every purchase filled me with glee - from my glass top desk from Ikea to small my metal mesh desk set (and matching trashcan) from Staples. Talk about Christmas in July!
 
My first trip that year was an adventure. I rented a car and drove from Philly to Richmond, VA to Charlotte, N.C. to Charleston, S.C. Each stop I stayed with family for three or four days. My last trip that year was to a writers’ conference at Sandy Cove Christian Retreat Center in North East, MD. What a joy! Even now I get chills when I remember how one workshop leader had everyone in the room stand up say “I am a writer!” over and over until we believed it. I left that trip with all the tools I needed to publish my first book. Or so I thought.
 
Life has a way of teaching us things we didn’t realized we needed to know. I went back into the workforce, first in an administrative job, then later in broadcasting. (Something else I always said I wanted to do.) I left Verizon in April of 2002. Six years passed before I actually began writing my first book. It was published almost two years later.
 
My first book, A Time To Write, was published on March 20, 2010. 

​Poetricia Publishing © 2010

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