Confessional: I’m Overwhelmed…and I Have a Fear to Share

Photo from Pinterest.com

A couple of weeks ago, I said that I had taken the first step in putting myself out there with my writing. As that post was already crazy long, I said I would share details with you at a later date. This is that date!

This was originally supposed to be a post showing off some wonderful pumpkin cream cheese muffins, or the butternut squash soup I made last month. I especially wanted to post these because the lovely Ari over at The Diva Dish was doing a fall recipe link-up and I thought that either of these recipes would be perfect. However, I moved on Monday and…well…

I’m completely overwhelmed.

The house is full of boxes that have yet to be unpacked. The kitchen is unpacked but empty because there has not been one spare second to go grocery shopping.

I can’t find the photos I took of my butternut squash soup on my Macbook anywhere (which is nothing to do with moving technically but I swear all the chaos permeated the screen and even muddled up my iPhoto organization).

The pumpkin cream cheese muffins are not yet ready to be blogged about. They are still very much a work in progress (I swear I will finish it this weekend!).

So anyway, I sent Ari a link to my pie post from earlier this week, which works as I feel that pie is pretty synonymous with fall. It is especially synonymous with Thanksgiving, and here in Canada our Thanksgiving is next weekend (I can’t believe it’s so soon!).

I promise that next week is going to be a very heavy food week. This is, after all, mainly a food blog, and there will be baked goods, soup and more up there – plus a giveaway. I’m going to be cooking all weekend (in between unpacking). So please come back next week when I promise to have more of my house – and my blog – unpacked and ready to go.

In the meantime, to go back to what I began this post with – the lingering anxiety I wanted to share. I recently blogged a bit about my writing. And said I had taken the first step to putting myself out there. What was that step?

Well, I – gulp – registered for a writers’ conference!

My lovely best friend Afra told me about it after she saw it advertised and thought it would be a great opportunity for me.

It’s the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, and it’s a prestigious event that attracts renowned writers from all over to come and host workshops, panels and give talks. Wannabe writers – like me! – can register for one, two or all three days of the event and can go and try to soak up some of these writers’ brilliance.

When you register though – gulp – you also get an appointment with an editor where they will give you a critique on 5 pages of your best writing. Then you also get a 10-minute appointment to pitch your work to an agent.

Um…yeah.

Opportunities like this are hard to find, but courage is also something I’m struggling to find here, so keep your fingers crossed for me please!

Not to mention I’m not even sure if I’m fully satisfied with the first 5 pages of any of my work to take it to an editor. But next weekend is the long weekend in Canada – our Thanksgiving – and I’m flying to Calgary to spend it with my sister, brother-in-law and mom. So I will do some writing there and try to polish it up as best I can.

I’ll let you know how it all works out. I have to trust in the following quote:

Ashley, who blogs over at Little Miss Momma, often posts quotes on her blog that she finds in image form on Pinterest (click here for my Pinterest account). As I am an addict of both quotes and Pinterest I loved the idea of having inspirational quotes in a picture rather than just typing them, so the images you have seen littered throughout this post are words that I need to try and get inspiration from.

I hope they help you in whatever you have going on in your life!

QUESTIONS:

1. What’s the bravest thing you’ve done professionally?

2. What’s your favourite quote (either from the ones above or one that you can share with us)?