The One With Sweet Serendipity #slice 2014

Every Tuesday, I participate in the Slice of Life challenge at Two Writing Teachers. If you want to participate, you can link up at their Slice of Life Story Post on Tuesdays or you can just head on over there to check out other people's stories. For more information on what a Slice of Life post is about, you can go here. 

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I'm a little behind because I didn't post a Slice or Celebrate post last week...but a little over a week ago, I met two champions of my writing life and I can't not celebrate them here. I was ecstatic to drive down to The Book Cellar in Chicago to meet and celebrate Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie who co-wrote their recently released book, Creed. 

Lindsay, me and Trisha at their book launch party at The Book Cellar in Chicago

Trisha and Lindsay were my mentors for Brenda Drake's Pitch Wars. It was a thrill to be chosen as a mentee and then to work with these super talented and down-to-business mentors. My manuscript is so much stronger thanks to their questions and asking for more and pushing me to think about what truly is the core of my story. It was a lot of work (I'm still kind of recovering...) but so completely worth it. I recommend Pitch Wars to anyone who is thinking they'll be ready next fall. I think I would recommend other contests as well, I'm just not familiar with others and can't speak to them. 

Sometimes I think about my life and how fortunate I am to be who I am and where I am and to have everything that I have. There is so much to be truly thankful for but while revising my novel, I thought a lot about luck. For a long time I believed in coincidences and fate. I'm not sure what I think now. I'm still undecided, I think. I want to experience more of life before I officially decide but it seems like life is about weighing out the options, making choices that seem best at the time based on given information and dealing with consequences. 

And then dealing with consequences is all about perspective. Being optimistic is part of my nature. Sometimes I live in a happy bubble and remind myself that not everyone has a bubble of happy they can burrow into all the time. Recently, a colleague said I was idealistic, always thinking about the best-case scenario and planning or working towards that. I understand what she was saying, but I can't see the sense in working towards anything less than the ideal situation. Maybe we don't get there, or maybe we have to take super, teeny, tiny steps to get there. But any progress can be a celebration and you adjust as you go. 

Was it destiny that I finished up revisions just as submissions for Pitch Wars opened? Was it fate that I was chosen for Pitch Wars? Was it coincidence that the Creed launch party was in Chicago just as Pitch Wars was ending? Maybe. Maybe a divine power? Or maybe we fill in the blanks and weave a serendipity story when it seems like things have fallen into place just for us. Personally, I love the idea that I get to write my own story, that life is a glorious choose-your-own-adventure book and I get to turn the pages. In the end, I'll look back on it from my happy bubble and bask in its fairy-tale awesomeness. Why not, right? How about you? What do you think?

And just for fun...because it can be kind of fun to be romantic and fantasize about the starts aligning every once in a while, here's Sweet Serendipity sung by Lee Dewyze.