Is Publishing All Just Happenstance?

Okay, let’s be honest though. EVERYTHING in my life has been happenstance. It’s not that I don’t work hard for the things that I want, but sometimes the universe swoops in to tell me that I’ve been going at it all wrong. Shakes my world like a luminous snow globe, and sets me off in a different direction.

There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a doctor. I studied biology, I took the exams, and I felt confident about the path I was on. But then I got sick and had to withdraw from school. I began coaching swimming and then working at the high school for extra money. Within a year, I was being offered a teaching position even though I didn’t have a teaching license or degree. I taught high school biology for a decade before my oldest child was born.

Then there was another time when I trained for two solid years to try to make the Paralympic swim team. I worked tirelessly for this goal. I spent gobs of money traveling to meets, training at wild hours of the morning, only to swim my brains out at the Trials and still not make the team. But, I met my husband at the water fountain on the last day of the meet.

I could go on because this is how my life has always worked. So why should I be surprised that this is how my publishing journey is going too?

Everything I know about publishing I’ve learned along the way. Knee-deep in applying for my own LLC to self-publish my memoir, I didn’t even know about query letters and agents. It was my memoir, and I just wanted it out in the world. So I did it.

That was over three years ago and I would certainly change some things now, knowing what I didn’t know then… but that’s not this post.

Here’s the happenstance.

A senior editor at a well-respected children’s book publisher noticed me on Twitter. She read my memoir and sent me a DM to see if I ever wanted to write a picture book about my experiences as a wheelchair user to let her know.

I wrote a book later that day and sent it to her.

Long story short, there’s no announcement yet, but I’m under contract for two picture books loosely tied to my memoir, and I couldn’t be more floored. All because of some random Twitter comment about school drop-off.

I’ve also been published in some fantastic outlets simply by using the gusto of my creation and believing in myself. The first time I was published in HuffPost, I was like, “Whoa, this is so easy!” (Since then, I have now realized that that, too, was happenstance, ha!) But I always keep trying, because what good are you if you aren’t doing something? Keeping myself busy while I wait for the universe to swoop down again and say, “Wait, you’re doing this all wrong!”

Moving away from self-publishing to give traditional publishing a try, I’ve landed a tremendous agent, having two offers of representation stemming from my wacky picture book deals. But now I have someone by my side who wants to champion everything I write—and that is such a powerful feeling.

I’ve written a middle grade fantasy and am working on a fiction novel, both of which highlight wheelchair user protagonists. My middle grade book went on submission about two weeks ago, so clearly I’m waiting for my moment of happenstance. And I’ve lived enough to know that this moment could be tied into publishing this book or something entirely different. Only time will tell. But it’s all forward moving, and it’s all living.

Over everything I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned that you can’t force it. Your path and journey are guided by something you need, whether you know it or not. The best thing you can do is be your most authentic self and be willing to pivot at any point. Let your snow globe shake.

But, really, in everything that I accomplish in life and in publishing, I wholly understand that I am lucky enough to stroll down the right path at the right time, without resisting any of it. I take a lot of breaths and enjoy where it takes me.