One year ago today, my life changed.

One year ago today, my novel LIFE AFTER YES was released.

One year ago today, I wrote the following words:

5:32am. Eastern Time. Tuesday. May 18th. 2010.

I sit here. At my desk. My messy desk. Waiting for the coffee to perk. Waiting to wake up.

Today, I think it will take more than coffee.

Today, my first book is published. Born. Here. There. Everywhere.

Today is big and tiny.

Big because I have wanted this for a long time. Big because after decades of operating on academic auto-pilot, I danced with a dream. Big because there were so many voices, echoing in my head and my heart. Voices that said No. No. No. Voices that said everyone wants to write a book. It is so hard to write a book. No one gets published. Why do you think you are any different? Why do you think you will cut it? No. No. No.

So, today is big because something in me stood up to the parade of No. Big because I chose a different word.

Yes.

It wasn’t a conscious choice. More of a gradual shift. An embrace. An awakening. A realization that our lives are stories we write for ourselves. Their arcs aren’t fixed. Their endings aren’t determined. And how we fill the pages of our days? It is up to us. And so, as hard as it was at first (oh, and it was), I started saying and thinking a sunnier word. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is my life. No one else’s. These are my days. What do I want from these days?

I want love. I want little ones. I want stories. I want dreams.

Today? Today, I am awash in love. Today I wait for my little ones to wake up so I can squeeze them and study their eyes like I do every morning. Today is its own story. One not yet ready to tell. One that will be told.

Today is a dream.

But today is also tiny. Because it is just one. One day. A brilliant blip on my existential radar. Today will proceed like any other. I will refill my coffee cup, my cat mug Toddler gave me for Christmas, and I will hang out with my man and my girls. We will play with rainbow stickers. We will work on puzzles. We will look for that inevitable missing piece. There is always a missing piece. We will smile and laugh and snuggle.

I sit here. Wishing I had planned these words a bit more carefully, but knowing why I didn’t. I didn’t because I wanted to come here and convey what it is that I am feeling. In the moment. On my big and tiny day.

And so. Here I am doing that. Rambling on. Allowing myself to ramble on.

Yesterday, as I wheeled Baby home from music class in her rainbow stroller, she was particularly animated. She pumped her little legs and bounced in her seat. She pointed at passing puppies and speeding cars. And she kept saying the same thing over and over.

Happy Day.

Her words were clear. And loud. And, yes, she might have been singing “Happy Birthday” without the “birth” bit. But it doesn’t matter, does it? She said those words over and over. Happy day! Happy day! Happy day!

And these words echo in my head this morning. Of all the fancy words in life’s lexicon, these seem to be the perfect words to describe this day, the day on which my literary baby is born.

Happy Day.

And through that small space between two sturdy words, two good words, a current of No snakes through. Those voices. No. No. No. So what? Your book is published, but will people buy it? Will they like it? Most books fade away. Don’t get your silly little hopes up. Be real…

And, on this morning, I tell those voices to shush. On this morning, my silly little hopes are up and my smile is here. On this morning, this big and tiny Tuesday Morning in May, I am all about a different word.

Yes.

It’s time for coffee. It’s time for morning kisses. It’s time for today.

It’s time to wake up.

I read these words and smile. Because it all comes back. That exquisite anxiety and anticipation that gripped me. That brilliant sense of not knowing, but hoping. That keen awareness of good fortune laced with glittering uncertainty.

I smile also because some words I wrote inspire me today, on this different day a year later:

“…our lives are stories we write for ourselves. Their arcs aren’t fixed. Their endings aren’t determined. And how we fill the pages of our days? It is up to us.”

Perhaps it is the portrait of egotism to quote oneself, but hey, I’ll risk that. Because here I sit, a whole year later, still scared and still proud, still humble and still hopeful, filling the pages of my good life. Today’s page is a swath of exhaustion and elation, a space full of tiny creatures, including one who was not yet here last year. Creatures who beckon beautifully for my hands and my heart, for me. And they will get me. We will do our thing and have our day, but all the while my mind will dance to last year at this time, a magical day in my personal and professional history.

My mind will also flit forward to that fat stack of white that lays untouched on life’s table, those pages not yet lived, what’s to come. The babies that will grow big. The books that will be birthed.

Today is a good day. Another Happy Day.

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What were you doing one year ago? Are you inspired and encouraged by the notion that it is largely up to us how we fill the pages of our lives?

I’m having lunch with my agent (the lovely Brettne Bloom of Kneerim & Williams) today. The last time I saw Brettne was about a week before my little babe was born. We went for coffee. I expressed my concern about finishing my next novel with a newborn at home. Brettne, a mother of two young girls herself, urged me to be kind to myself about striking a balance between babies and books. She implored me to enjoy my time with my newest addition and assured me that there would be plenty of time to write and publish good books.

It was a wonderful meeting. Because this is just what I needed to hear; that there is really no rush. That my ideas and stories are going nowhere, that my little baby will only be little for so long, that the biggest concern is that I write the right book, a compelling book, when the time is right. I left my coffee date encouraged and thrilled that I am working with the right agent. And I am.

But. Here’s the thing. In the past nine weeks, I’ve had this nagging, gnawing feeling that I should be writing. Actually, it’s not so much that I should be writing, but rather that I want to be writing. Many times a day, I sit here, nursing my tiny thing, tickling her toes, chasing the big ones, and my mind is elsewhere – plotting prose, whipping up chapters, eager to get to my desk to write it all down. But I don’t. I don’t get there. The day blurs by and I am mush at the end of it.

And so. I will meet Brettne today and I wish that I could hand over a pile of crisp white paper and say it: Here it is. Somehow, despite the domestic chaos, despite the paucity of rest, I have eked out a solid draft. But I will not do this. Instead, I imagine, we will have another conversation much like the one we had last time. I will tell her that I’m having a hard time balancing the personal and the professional, self and other. And, because she’s an understanding and wise person, she will tell me not to worry.

But I will worry. Because that’s what I do. I will worry that this book will not get written, that I will continue to concoct excuses, that time will slide by. That my writer self will be scattered and strewn by my mother self.

But. As I write this, I realize something. Something at once simple and profound.

I chose this.

I chose to become a mother three times over in rapid succession. I chose to immerse myself in the very chaos in which I now fortunately flail. I chose to forgo the modicum of literary momentum I had built in the wake of publishing Life After Yes to have another child. I chose to put my writing on that proverbial back burner for the moment. This moment.

And so. I chose this. And this? This is amazing and frustrating and real and tricky. This parenthood thing, this mothering madness, this exquisite impasse. And I am happy I did. Even if it means that I cannot do something else I love to the extent I would like right now.

Albert Camus said it and I believe it wholly and deeply: “Life is a sum of all your choices.”

This choice – to be a mother, to be a mother to many, to be a mother to many right now – is not just a choice. It is a part of my life. The life I am fortunate to lead, exceedingly fortunate to lead, even if it is not easy sometimes. And, with this in mind, maybe Brettne and I will not raise a glass to finished drafts, but to unfinished lives instead. And to choices. Those we are privileged enough to make.

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Do you ever stop and look at your life and realize that it is the sum of discrete choices you have made? Do you have a difficult time balancing the personal and the professional? Do you agree that I should bask in this moment of motherhood instead of worrying about the birth of my next book? Do you agree that choice is at once a tricky and wonderful thing?

Since publishing my first novel Life After Yes last May, I have been asked the same question over and over: How autobiographical is the story? And even though I’ve had plenty of time to come up with a good and satisfying answer to this one, I tend to bumble my way through my response every time. I say something along the lines of: There are bits and pieces of me in the book – of course there are – but no one character in it is me or someone I know. And the story is totally imagined even if aspects of it do come from my life or experience.

This is all true. What I love about writing fiction is that I am allowed to draw from what I have lived and what I know while making stuff up.

I recently finished a wonderful novel called The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst wherein the protagonist Octavia Frost is herself an acclaimed novelist. Here and there, Octavia muses on the experience of being a novelist, of having a writer’s soul. And she says something that really struck me.

…There’s an analogy I came up with once for an interviewer who asked me how much of my material was autobiographical. I said that the life experience of a fiction writer is like butter in cookie dough: it’s a crucial part of flavor and texture — you certainly couldn’t leave it out — but if you’ve done it right, it can’t be discerned as a separate element. There shouldn’t be a place that anyone can point to and say, There — she’s talking about her miscarriage, or Look — he wrote that because his wife had an affair.

The Nobodies Album, Carolyn Parkhurst, p. 153

Yes. Yes. Yes. She (Octavia? Carolyn?) has nailed it as far as I’m concerned. The fiction author’s personal experience is an ingredient, a vital one, to the recipe of the story, but it cannot be, and should not be, detectable as such.

Like butter in cookie dough.

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Do you ever find answers to your life questions embedded in the books you read? When you read a novel or other piece of fiction do you ever assume that it is autobiographical? How much of your own life experience do you put into your work (writing or other)? Anyone else a big fan of cookie dough?

Over my holiday break, I devoured a wonderful debut novel called Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey. It is a beautiful story, simply and stunningly told, about a young woman who returns to her childhood home in a college town after the sudden death of her professor/poet father. I recommend it wholeheartedly. At the center of this book loomed an interesting and important (to me) question:

Who is the perfect reader? And what is her role?

The novel explores the role of reader as Understander. Pouncey details the opinion of Professor Dempsey, the protagonist’s late father: “Books [are] not mirrors… but windows. One ought not read to understand one’s own place in the world, or the world in abstract, but to understand the individual experience of another. And even more, to understand the individual force and resonance of words.”

This book, and this theory, made me think. And this in my opinion is what the best books do. They make us think. But I’m not sure whether I agree with the words above. Aren’t books (and blogs) both mirrors and windows? Don’t we read for a host of reasons, some opaque to us — to understand ourselves, to make sense of the world, to glimpse humanity, to immerse ourselves in beautiful language? Don’t we read for all these reasons and more? I think so. I do.

And so. As a book and blog writer, I am left wondering. Who are you my current and future readers? What do you hope to find in my words, in my true bits and fictional worlds? What kinds of stories will keep you flipping and clicking and existentially aroused?

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Do you believe books and blogs are mirrors or doors? Who are you? What do you want as a reader? Why do you come here? What kinds of stories bring you back for more? What kind of questions shake you? Which posts reach out and grab you? When do you comment and why?

**Please leave a comment here today 1/27/11 before 11 p.m. EST for a chance to win your own copy of Perfect Reader. Because I am feeling generous, I will also throw in a signed copy of my own book Life After Yes!**

I have never been very good at asking for help. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because asking makes me feel weak or vulnerable, open or exposed. Maybe because I harbor a belief that I should not need the assistance for which I am asking. Maybe because I worry that, by asking, I am intruding upon another person’s territory of time. Again, I don’t know.

But here’s the thing. There are so many times when I need help. I do. With my kids. With my life. With myself. And here’s the other thing: When other people ask me for help, I’m happy to give it. Often, there is nothing better than doing someone a favor, than being there for someone in a moment when they cannot manage alone.

And so. Here I am. Challenging myself. Asking for help.

As many of you know, I published my first novel LIFE AFTER YES almost seven months ago. Of this book, I am immensely proud. I worked very hard on it and I think it’s a unique story. And things are going well. The book is selling. It has received some very exciting and noteworthy accolades (Among receiving several lovely reviews from so many of you, LAY was crowned a TARGET breakout book!, was the SheKnows final book club pick of the year! and is Write Meg’s favorite novel of 2010!). But beyond these nods, what has meant most to me is the support I’ve gotten from readers. Readers I know in “real life” and “virtureal” friends. My months have been peppered with emails from people who have read LAY and loved it. This never gets old. Trust me, it never will. I read these notes over and over.

Just the other day, I got a note from a friend from high school. She told me how much she loved LAY and mentioned that she is excited to read my next book. And I did it. I emailed her back yesterday and thanked her for her kind and lovely words. And then I asked. I asked if she would mind writing a short review on Amazon. My palms sweat a bit as I typed this, this question, but I did it. I asked for help. Because I want my book, my first book, to continue to thrive. I want people to continue to meet Quinn and read her story. My story. As I emailed her, my friend, I got the idea for this post.

What if I asked my blog readers for help? (In many cases, more help because so many of you have already helped so much.)

What if I asked for those who have read and liked LAY to post a review on Amazon?

What if I asked those who have already posted a review to email a friend or purchase LAY as a holiday gift?

What if I asked those who hadn’t yet bought LAY or read it to do so?

What would happen then?

Here I am. Finding out. Asking. Palms clammy. Ego shivering. Feeling a bit shrunken and shaky. But also excited, hopeful.

It’s an experiment. A stretching of self. A re-drawing of comfort zones. And we will see.

Maybe this asking will offend. Maybe this asking will annoy. Or maybe, just maybe, this asking will trigger something. Something good. An awareness that in this life, we are never alone, that our dreams and desires and doubts have cousins. That there are people out there, supportive souls and sweet strangers and secret Santas, who are eager to assist.

That, sometimes, all we have to do is ask.

**Speaking of help, thanks to all of you for your wonderful baby name suggestions yesterday! So many good and viable ones to ponder!!**

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Are you good at asking for help? Why or why not? If you have read and enjoyed my rookie novel LAY, please consider taking a moment, clicking here, and writing a short review. If you have yet to purchase or read my book, please think about doing so. Did I mention that LAY would make a lovely holiday gift?