Perfect Timing

I came to New York in the fall of 1998 after having deferred my acceptance to law school at Northeastern University in Boston. With all the bravado of the inexperienced, I gave myself six months, give or take, to become a published writer.

If that didn’t pan out, I’d hedged my bets and could take a short train ride to Boston to begin my law career. I hadn’t ever visited New York City, but my ambivalence about law school coupled with my ambivalence about every other career path, except writing, made it seem a viable, even practical option.

It seems absurd now to think that I’d never sent an email before moving to NYC. Yet within a couple of weeks, I found myself in a temp job on Wall Street, operating a multi-page digital phone with hundreds of lines, barking at traders to “pick up Foley on three!” By Halloween, I’d penetrated the mysteries of email and finally understood what all the dotcom hoopla was about.

Six months unfurled into a year, and then years. The road to public interest law was not taken, but neither was the dedicated road to becoming a writer. Instead, I did my NYC tour of occupational duty. There were temp jobs, corporate gigs, a requisite go at acting (and singing!), and a seven-year stint at a hedge fund.

But the yearning to experience the world through writing never left me. Just before turning 40, I joined a writing group with three other brilliant, creative, supremely funny women. Our foursome was united in our desire to return to an early love of storytelling, a love that for a myriad of reasons, had been shelved.

Lo and behold, it was the perfect time.

Because Now is always the perfect time to start writing.

Since then I’ve written several short stories, two novels (one of which will be published in the fall of 2020), and I’m working on a third novel. Sometimes facing the blank page feels fraught and confrontational, like I’m in the shadow of a falling object. Sometimes it’s effortless, my fingers too slow to capture the joyful upwelling of words and phrases. Always, I am grateful to experience myself and the world through writing.