The world is run by those who show up.

Okay, so it sounds pretty basic.  But my entire life my father has always told me those words.

 ” The world is run by those who show up,” he would always say. “Who  knows?  If you shoot for the moon, you just might land on a star.”

This Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Austin SCBWI conference.  I had worked my San Antonio rotation seeing 57 doctors in 5 days, and hadn’t seen my kiddos since Tuesday.  I was exhausted,  recovering from a virus and feeling ridiculously insecure. And, to top it off I was surrounded by amazingly motivated and “plugged in” individuals.  These were the folks who blog daily, twitter hourly, and read constantly.  They knew everyone’s work. Subscribed to everyone’s blog. And perhaps knew the resumé and bios. of some speakers, well perhaps better than the speakers themselves.

I did not.

Sitting in the conference, I kept thinking of my oldest child.  My daughter. My brainiac.  She had recently been offered an invite to attend an exciting new program, which combines high school and college.  In essence, at 14 she would be enrolling as a college freshman.  By the time she graduated she would have either 60 college hours or an associate’s degree.  Her pick. 

I had spent two weeks pleading with her to attend. 

“Give it a year,” I would say.  “If you don’t like it, if you think it is too hard, or not what you expect,  then you can go to regular high school. No pressure. No questions asked.  But don’t let fear of failure or self-doubt stand between you and your dreams.”

And then pulling from my youth and the words my father had harped to me so many times as I shuttered  and ran from one opportunity after the next, I told her “Sissy, the world is run by those who show up.  If you shoot for the moon, who knows you just might land on a star. Don’t let fear cloud your sight and blind you to the brilliance of your shining star.”

Pretty good, right?  Not so much. 

 She barked and yelled and stomped about and did all of the things that a 13-yr-old should do and in all honesty I would have done  at her age as well.  But then, at the last minute as I was packing for my monthly road trip, she had a change of heart. 

Sissy decided to show up.

So here I was at yet another writer’s conference. I didn’t have a critique session, because I had to wait and make sure Santa was paid before registering for the Houston or Austin conferences, at which point all critique slots were filled.  I wasn’t the childless children’s book author, of which there were many in the room.  I wasn’t the empty nest children’s book writer of  which there were also a few of in the room.  And then I  did not fall into the last category of married homemaker children’s book writer, furiously pursuing her dreams of publication between the hours of eight and three.

No.  I was the single mother of three children’s book writer, who writes in brief spurts in between sales calls or between the hours of midnight and two while her children sleep.  I hadn’t done my homework and reread every book every speaker had ever written prior to the conference just in case an opportunity for conversation might arise while waiting in line for the potty.  But I had been finishing up Percy Jackson with my seven-year-old emerging reader. I was rereading all of the S.E. Hintons with my thirteen-year-old and in sleepless moments of delirium I have been known to read and reread Who Flung Dung and Once Upon a Potty with my four-year-old  as we laugh ourselves to tears and tinkle. 

In fact I have read some form of bedtime story or novel excerpt every night for the last thirteen years.  Not for research but for investment.  The investment of growing minds.

So here I was sitting at this conference, my usual insecure mess, listening, observing and feeling for the most part intimidated. I thought about how I doubted myself out of Naropa following a tour of the MFA program in my 20s, certain that my publication in college literary journals was somehow a fluke.  Besides who could resist titles like The Milk of a Snake/ The Poison of Honey or Jesus, Lithium, Phone Sex and Thoughts of You.  Catchy titles, I would tell myself that is all.

 I doubted myself and somehow revelled in the loathing of  my MFA classmates back at the university, bitter that my former fiction writing professors had invited me to audit their  classes.   Having lied,  I told my professors that I did not have a presentable portfolio to submit and therefore could not formally apply for the MFA literary program, and besides I had already been accepted to the Women’s Studies program.  I couldn’t possibly do both. 

In fact,  once I did apply and receive my scholarship and teaching stipend for the Master’s program in Women’s Studies I still felt that I somehow was an imposter.  I did not belong.  I was too happy, too optimistic to possibly belong in literary or academic circles.  And one thing I knew for certain, was that constant praise only produced more enemies, happily awaiting my next slip or fall.

But in all honesty I’ve never really minded falling.  Some of my best lessons I’ve learned flat on my face, or on scratched up hands and knees.  It was success, momentary success, all eyes on me success, allowing for open critique, me at the center of the three ring that was what terrified me. In fact I felt relieved when I gave birth to my daughter in grad school.  She was a preemie, needing constant care.  It was time to put my dreams behind me once and for all.

Six years later came Lucci her brother, and then Cash my youngest followed two years after that.  I had officially become a non-dreaming adult, occasionally painting, constantly cooking, tirelessly working and obsessed with raising beautifully brilliant children.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for another fall, I fell and skinned my uterus I would joke.   If it hadn’t been for an emergency hysterectomy three years ago, following a heartbreaking couple of years  I might never have come back to my dreams. My star. The reason God put me on this earth in the first place.  I was born to write.

Flat on my face, and missing a part or two, I finally decided to show up. I picked up a pen and scribbled the words a  SingleMotherof Three production on a notepad and from there picked up where I had given up over ten years earlier.

Sitting in the conference, between speakers and notes, I smiled, as a speaker said the words my father had also spoke so many times before during my youth.

She said, “Be fearless. Keep writing because talent ALWAYS rises to the top.”

Be fearless in your writing. In your passions.  In whatever it is that drives you.  Let’s all plan on showing up for 2010. Who knows if you shoot for the moon, you might just luck up and land on your star.

Happy writing!

Grey