What Are You Waiting For?

Tara sat, staring at the blank screen on her laptop, thinking. Voices from the past drifted in and out of her consciousness.

“Someday I’m going to be a famous writer!” her 8-year-old voice said confidently. “I’m gonna write great books for kids! I’m gonna be the next J.K. Rowling!”

“I’m going to write things that matter!” her 19-year-old voice announced fervently. “Bring the real deal to the people! I’m going to be a voice for change!”

Other voices chimed in. “Are you going to spend your whole life daydreaming?” her mother’s voice asked impatiently. “Why don’t you get up and do something? There are chores waiting!”

Her father’s voice: “When you get the right man to marry you, you can waste all the time you want on your little stories! Get out there and get that ring on your finger!”

“What are you waiting for?” her best friend, Linda, asked her. “There’s no time like the present! Write what you love; love what you write.”

That question - “What are you waiting for?” - floated through her mind over and over again. In her mother’s voice, in her father’s voice, in her friend’s voice. In her own voice. What was the answer? What was she waiting for?

The years flew by. Her life became full and busy, with a job, a husband, two children. Book club. Aerobics class. Time spent at the gym, putting miles on the treadmill. Trips to visit far-flung sisters and cousins. Vacations with her husband and kids. More time spent at work.

Her dreams of becoming a writer fell by the wayside. She didn’t have time for that.

But the kids grew up. The job became just a job. She loved her house, loved staying home and curling up with a good book, traveled less.

And then she retired. Technically, she was forced to retire. She had a good run. Time to make room for the young folks.

Time on her hands. So much time.

That question - “What are you waiting for?” - returned to her mind, front and center. The dream of being a writer bobbed to the surface. What AM I waiting for?

“Well,” she said briskly to the waiting keyboard, “I guess I’m waiting for… now! If not now, when?”

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. “Now!” she repeated. “No time like the present.”

After a few minutes, her hands dropped back into her lap. “What on Earth am I going to write about?” she muttered to herself.

Maybe a peek at a few more websites… check some emails … a free class? A workshop? A writer’s retreat?

Hours later, she gently closed the top of her laptop, heaved a sigh, and went down to the kitchen. Her husband wandered down and found her there, cutting up onions, recipe book propped before her.

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I thought you were writing,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “So did I.”

She turned into his arms. “I’ve got nothing. No ideas. I got tired of staring at that empty screen and came down to start dinner.” She sighed. “Maybe this writing thing isn’t such a good idea.”

“Nonsense! You’ve always wanted to write. Now that you’re retired, and the kids are out of the house, you have the time to do it!”

“Time, yes. Ideas, no.”

Over dinner later, she brought it up again. “Who am I going to write for, anyway? Who would want to read what I write?”

“Besides me, you mean?” he asked with a smile.

“Well, yeah.” She returned his smile. “I mean, you HAVE to read it.”

“Well,” he said, “write for YOU, then. Whatever you want to write.”

“But I don’t KNOW what I want to write!” she wailed.

“You will,” he said. “When you’re ready.”

“Back to the keyboard,” she sighed. She typed a few vague queries into her search engine. How do I find something to write about? What do I do about writer’s block? How do I find a good idea? How do I know when an idea is a good one? How do I become a writer?

Answers came at her fast and strong, most of them some form of “I can teach you/guide you/help you for ONLY $$$.”

Frustrated, she kept looking, kept reading. The magic answer had to be out there somewhere.

One day, when she was - as usual - scrolling instead of writing, she came across a picture in her news feed. “What a great picture!” she thought. It was posted on a website called Writers Unite, with an invitation to write a story based on the picture and a first line they provided. Tara dove right in. She always struggled with the first sentence; but here it was, already there. The second sentence was easier, and the third, and before she knew it, she had written an entire little story. She excitedly showed her work to her husband, then to her sister, then to her best friend. It wasn’t the Great American Novel, but she was writing. She was writing.

With each little story, her confidence grew. She looked for more picture prompts, more starting sentences. From there, she looked at her own photos that she had taken on vacations through the years, places she’d been, interesting bits of nature she had captured with her phone’s camera. She wrote about them. Her stories got longer.

She had an audience of sorts now: her husband, her children, her sisters, her friends. But she wanted more. More people to share her work with.

She read blogs and websites and Facebook posts that other authors made. How did they get their readers? She started posting questions: How did you grow your audience? How did you get your writing out there?

One of the suggestions was a platform called Vocal, so she checked it out. It seemed like a great place to post her work, so she signed up.

She wrote short stories, and poems, and book reviews. She entered challenges.

Her husband subscribed to her. (Well, of course, he HAD to.) Her sisters and her children followed suit. One friend, and then another.

Before she knew it, she had more than 50 subscribers who read her writing.

“Well,” she thought, as she sat down at her laptop to write another story to post, “I’m not a famous writer yet. But it’s a beginning.”