Please pretend you’re reading this on November 22, 2024.
Finally finished my mom’s memoir, Greener Grass, Different Drummer! Can’t recall when I started, maybe 2017 or so? I had this thought that since I knew all my mom’s stories, of growing up in New Orleans etc., that they would be a great short story collection.
Then, in 2018 when I made 33 my mom’s best friend Melanie (Auntee Mel) gave me my mom’s journals, after previously telling me they “drowned in the storm.” When she gave them to me, she said my mom told her it was time. And she was right! I was teaching, I think, and my kid was almost four. Had she given them to me in 2016 when I asked about them, I would’ve been too reliant upon them for the book.
Oh I should add, my mom died when I was 17. So it’s not like I can ask her anything. (Well I do with tarot cards and such but you know what I mean.)
In March 2019 I applied for the Jack Jones Literary Arts retreat and was accepted! A three percent acceptance rate maybe lower! The woman who founded the retreat said I was her special fellow!
Then the fellowship came and I was soooo excited and did so well and learned so much (honestly I feel like I was giving star pupil a lot of the time) but etc etc etc it was incredibly traumatic and I put my manuscript away for years. Also got laid off a couple weeks after, then here’s 2020 and COVID and finishing kindergarten and starting 1st grade at home.
So yeah. I survived on freelancing, applied for tons of jobs and got none, and then I saw a post online. Alana Marie, @iamalanamarie on Instagram and Threads, said to announce you’re finishing a thing on a certain date. She said your brain starts to work in reverse, and there you are. She said it’s important to choose an actual date. I chose November 22, 2024!
I said that by then I’d not only have my manuscript complete, but I’d also have at least nine of the 51 short stories published, will have won contests and prizes and would be in talks with a handful of literary agents.
Alana Marie was right! Something changed when I said it out loud, with an actual date. Next thing you know, I was sitting in my bed making a 13-week plan to write, rest, edit, interview, research, edit, pitch. For years I’d try different things. Every break I had from my kid, I’d say I would write. But I’d just sit in silence or enjoy grownup life haha. Once, I held “Pretend Megan is Dead Fest,” where I shared a graphic of me in the clouds with angel wings! That didn’t work.
But as you can see today, Alana Marie’s tip did! I feel soooooo excited and thankful and relieved and proud and successful after not only getting the writing done, with all the other bits (will share when posted on Publisher’s Marketplace), but getting so many stories published! Winning so many contests! Being in talks with a bunch of really awesome agents!
What’s more, I consulted my tarot cards on August 25, 2024, asking them basically what would my mom, her brother, their parents, etc think of my book. And how would it go, in the literary world. And the world world? Listen. The first card that popped out (Mama Vida taught me and my girl Lauren R. D. Fox reminded me) was the EMPRESS card. It has its own meaning, but I remember years ago at a Tatianna Tarot event at Rosalie Botanicals when she described it, I said OH that is my mama. Hands down.
The other cards that popped out were the Ace of Wands (YES card), Nine of Cups (WISH card) and Four of Wands. Basically, all signs point to YES!
I continued reading Black Women Writers at Work and 1,000 Words. Also I started rereading undergrad textbooks English Grammar, Creative Writer’s Handbook and Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style.
I researched agents, contests, grants, fellowships and prizes.
And, as my mommy would say, “everything [fell] into place.”
