Ch-ch-ch-changes

This weekend, my husband and I will celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary. After more than 29 years together, he still manages to surprise and delight me and make me giggle. Our marriage still feels fresh.

Not so for everything in my life. I've been a science and medical writer and editor since 1986, first on staff and later—since 1990—as a freelancer. It was a great career for many years, but in the past few years it has grown stale, and the writing I turned in to my clients began to show it. I didn't realize what was wrong for a long time, but at last I realized it was time for something new.

Time to jump off a cliff again, as I did twenty years ago when I went freelance.

I have retired from medical writing. One small copyediting client remains in my stable. Otherwise, I am a fiction writer now. Not completely full time, because my health problems are a part-time job in themselves, but as full time as I can be at anything.

I'm thrilled, sad, nervous, eager, reluctant, and several other contradictory emotions all rolled together. This is a leap of faith for my husband, too, and I'm pleased he's willing to go on this adventure with me. The only ones completely without reservations are the lizards in my yard (notice the one at left, grinning), who expect my procrastination will lead to more mealworms for them.

I'll chronicle my journey and share my ups and downs with you here on "For Love of Words" as I close the door on the first half of my life and enter the second. In the words of Robert Browning, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made . . . ."

✥✥✥✥✥

Coming next week: Choosing where to submit stories

Coming 28 July: an interview with Kathryne Kennedy, author of several fantasy romances