What’s next?

Now that my first novel is published, people tend to ask me: what’s next?

The short, honest answer is: I don’t know.

Sometimes, that’s what I say.

Despite knowing this juncture was coming, my plan didn’t really stretch this far. It’s not that I’m without ideas or goals or aspirations or financial pressures that need addressing.

It’s just that I’m acutely aware of reality.

So many things are outside of my control. And the decision to self-publish without an agent has given me unprecedented freedom. I’m not contractually required to follow any specific route. And I’m not guaranteed any particular outcome.

Sometimes, that doesn’t seem to be what people want to hear.

It seems to be an uncomfortable admission – a misprint in the fairy tale ending; an affront to the onwards and upwards mentality of a culture and economy that’s addicted to the relentless pursuit of “progress”.

And it is uncomfortable: facing the blank, questioning the trajectory. But only initially. Feeling lost can be truly excruciating.

But, as a David Wagoner poem reminded me recently, it can also be the moment of sacred recognition. The moment of encounter and surrender and rediscovery.

I’m OK with that.

If I’m not worrying about external approval; if I don’t need to justify my life choices or encourage other people; if I adopt a protective shroud of silence and stop trying to seem like I have it all together: then, actually, I’m pretty happy in the free-fall of not-knowing.

It feels exciting. Adventurous. Abundant – even when that abundance is the unruly overflow of wildly tangled emotions.

I actually like blowing around in the wind.