I’m excited and
nervous! In 10 days my second book, “Notes from the Bottom of the World: A Life
in Chile,” will be launched out into the world. The book is a collection of
personal essays, exploring topics that inspired me – from Patagonian travels,
to aging, to the writing craft. I’ll be
traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband to present my book at
several venues: Book Passage, the Belmont
and Oakland libraries.
Sometimes in the
middle of the night I ask myself: why do I want to do this – stand in front of
a group or a crowd or a handful of people and bare my essays, my soul to them?
What was I thinking? I calm myself by reminding myself that my deepest hope is
that some can relate to what I say or have written. The hours of writing,
editing, rewriting will be worth it if my words ring true for just one person.
If I were to go
back 15 years, I never imagined I’d be doing this. Yes, after I retired, I joined
an English-speaking writing group and began work on my first memoir, published
ten years later. Now I wonder what I’d be doing with my retirement days if I
didn’t have writing. Of course, there’s reading, gardening, exercising and
traveling, but writing is my creative outlet and greatest satisfaction.
