Last week, I had the honor of being featured on Author Accelerator’s YouTube Channel in a their series called Book Coach Chats: Success Stories with Jennie Nash. During the interview, I talked about how I got derailed from my dream career in my twenties, my 35-year career as a paralegal, and my long and winding path to becoming a writer, a certified book coach, and an editor.
My segment is called “A Path Out of Misery”–this is something you’ll learn as a writer: you don’t always have a say in what things are titled. Even the things you write can be retitled by the publication. So, it’s not what I’d have titled it, had it been up to me, but it’s not entirely wrong either. I love my life. I try to always look on the bright side. I’m resilient, and I don’t live in regret. Everything I’ve done in my life has led me to this place. And I would never call my life one of misery. It’s not in my nature. I’d have probably titled it, “A Path Toward ….” Something … happiness, fulfillment, joy, the person I was always meant to be.
But it is true that I’ve lived my life in a career that was not what I chose for myself. It’s a career that’s made me financially secure and able to raise my family, and each morning when I count my blessings, I literally say aloud how grateful I am for my job. But it’s not my dream career—it’s been stressful, it can be all-consuming with poor work/life balance, and it has often made me unhappy and, yes, even miserable. So I am thrilled at this stage of my life to be getting back to the things I dreamed of doing when I was a young mother and college student at U.C. Santa Cruz. Getting my MFA at the age of 60 and then going beyond that to become a book coach has given me the chance for a do-over, the opportunity to be what I might have been.
I also talk about how much I got out of my MFA program—I wrote an award-winning work of literary fiction with the mentorship of some incredible professors, all best-selling authors themselves—and how Author Accelerator offered me further insight into the craft of writing and helped me to become a teacher, which has been my lifelong dream.
I wanted to share this interview with you, dear writers, so you can get to know me a little, understand what drives me and what brings me joy as a book coach, and learn what I do as a book coach to help writers.