It's Official...I'm a Writer.

It took a day to sink in...I'm a writer.

I started the current WIP last year, but I wasn't a writer.
I study and cried and revised and cried and revised with my teacher, CJ Redwine, but I wasn't a writer.
I lined up the beta's for the first half of critiques for WIP, but I wasn't a writer.
I built the website, made friends and "connections" on twitter and Facebook, but I wasn't a writer.
I launched the blog, had business cards made up (mom wanted proof I was working), but I wasn't a writer.
I quit the day job in September, but I wasn't a writer.

I donated a bunch of old work clothes to a local charity, but I wasn't a writer.

I set up my office, installed plot boards, time lines, strategies, but I wasn't a writer.

There's a massive excel file that even my left brain husband is afraid to open with the year of my writing life carefully outlined for him, but I wasn't a writer.

All these things and I wasn't a writer until Friday. 

WHAT!!!

Yep, Fridays I volunteer at my 1st grader's library as their class librarian.  Budget cuts to the fine arts program translated to a roaming school librarian that is shared among the several elementary schools in the district.  A note was sent home at the beginning of the year that the kids were not going to be able to check out books from this amazing school library because there was no librarian available. 

I know!!!

Don't get me started on the stupidity of budget cuts and then the confusion that our world "ranking" is sinking like a scuttled ship.

The parents joined together and every classroom now has a parent/librarian.  But that's not how I knew I was a writer.
On Friday, Jacob and his friends were discussing what their parents did for a living.  There were accountants, doctors, firefighters, businessmen etc.  Then it was Jacob's turn. 
"What's your dad do Jacob?"
"He's a Realtor."
"And you're mom?"
"She's a writer."

My heart burst at the seams. I was a writer, my 7 year old said so!!!

My delight pulled at the corners of my lips, but I kept it under wraps. I didn't want to embarass him or make a scene by squealing or spinning around the library like a goof ball. A deep breath, a giddy hand and I just checked out another book for another child.  So many things were racing through my head:

Would I disappoint Jacob?

What if I never sold anything?

Doubt tumbled over What if and....

As I put the little girl's book in the classroom crate I looked at the the author... it was Judy Blume's TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING.  It was like Judy Blume was standing in that library with me, smaking me up aside the head herself!!! I was holding in my hand one of the first books I read that made me think maybe, just maybe... I could be a writer too!