I hope that the people I love read this. It would mean a lot to me.

Dear people I love and like. This is Gillian. I know that I have been flooding facebook and other internet outlets with a ton of writing, and you all are busy people. But if you read anything I have written, I hope you read the following. I am writing to say that I have been feeling more alive lately. The reasons are as follows:

1. Jack is great, and he is my husband

2. I am traveling

3. I have been writing and editing my writing.

I have always known that what I want to do in life is read, write, and talk about reading and writing. I still don't know about teaching. It's stimulating, but it sucks up all my creative energy and I don't have the passion for it that I feel for writing, reading and talking about reading and writing in a sophisticated way. But I haven't drawn any final conclusions about teaching, so when I get back, I will try teaching; hopefully part time because I want to write, read, and all that other stuff I just said. 

But I need to find a way to spend most of my time focusing on my talent and passion. I have always known what I wanted to do; I have just had no confidence that I could find a way to spend most of my time doing it. That mentality has been driving me crazy, so I am trying to learn a different way of thinking. I am realizing that I want to have kids in the next few years, and I need to figure out how to be a writer (and perhaps a teacher of creative writing) before that happens. I would like to be a more fulfilled person before I am entrusted by God with the lives of other human beings. 

Right now I am working on a number of short stories that I wrote recently in order to submit them to a contest. The winner of the contest gets to have a chapbook of their writing published in Portland. I'm not getting my hopes up about winning the contest; there are a lot of great writers in Portland. It is just something for me to work towards; a way to motivate myself to polish and develop my writing, begin submitting it to literary magazines, and learn to take rejection. I am also working on learning how to be okay with the fact that my writing does not turn out perfect the first time, a mindset that has paralyzed me for many years.

So thanks for reading this post and caring about what is going on with me right now. I really need help, so if you have a moment and a keen mind, specific suggestions on how I can improve a story would help me a great deal. You are under no obligation whatsoever, but I would be very grateful. Bryan Hiltner wrote four or five sentences of thoughtful feedback that allowed me to take a story I had written to the next level, and that was very inspiring. If you do this for me, I will be incredibly grateful, and in your debt and will pay you back with pie or love or something like that. 

Also, any ideas about how I can do what I want to do would be greatly appreciated.

OK, I'm done! Love, Gillian