My Submission Transmission

or, How it All Worked Out

Hello, friends!

     I am here to offer a HUGE thank you to those friends and followers who shared my post about my 10-year nomad-iversary! I have gained sixteen new followers in the past 30 days. You can't see this, but I just jumped high in the air and clicked my heels together in celebration! Well, virtually. I am thrilled! Thank you! Waving a warm hello to my newest shotgun riders, and also to my rusty trusties, who are already enjoying the view from their window seat perch. I have said it before but I will say it again….y'all ROCK!

Half of the fun for me is sharing the stories so others can ride along with us. I have written a post here and there as we have boondocked in the Valle/Williams/Flagstaff areas since the end of April. I also have a few drafts half-written that will pop up completed in your email (if subscribed) with photos you may have seen if you follow my The Sunny Side Facebook travel and inspirational page. I want to add them here, eventually, as I have gotten a bit behind while off on a tangent.

    I have spent the past 30 days or so writing a query letter and preparing a book proposal for a call for memoir submissions by The Dial Press division of Random House. Go big or go home was in charge that decision. A micro-short deadline lit the proverbial campfire under my backside. I have been all in on this project. There was a steep learning curve as I did my best to explain very, very briefly (and then at length in cases they asked for more) why someone would want to publish my book about getting out of bed and living over a decade of life on the road instead.

I can tell you that doing this exercise at a rapid pace was a bit like driving through Nada Tunnel in Stanton, Kentucky. Nada Tunnel is a one-way road cut into the side of a mountain. The only way to get through it is to venture in prepared to back up if you see headlights coming at you. Dan and I drove through on our way to our last camping spot before we were married, and although I was freaking out, I have never felt so sure of any decision, nor of any driver. Sifting through piles of notebooks and scraps of notes I have taken during my decade of nomadic life brought back a lot of memories about the joy of living my dream. It also reminded me of the harder parts and how I might choose to frame them in my memoir.

Scrolling back through the years was an emotional catharsis in ways that I wasn't fully prepared for. What a long, strange trip it has been. I am also aware that the only way through is by moving forward at a steady pace. I am the one in charge of this vehicle, and by golly I am the one who can make it move. Part of me had forgotten that fact.

I have learned a great deal from this rambling life and from this paticular project. While I did ultimately receive a rejection letter for this call for submissions, that letter makes me a true writer. It takes putting yourself out there to get published, warts and all. Suffering the blows of technical issues and my over-wordy tendencies helped me realize that I am missing a few chops in the editing department. I have organized my yellow dogs (yellow legal pads) and marveled at how much I have already completed in terms of the timeline of my journey, which will make it easier to write the whole shebang. The truth is, I live in the world of paper and pen and that world is mostly a thing of the past.

Maybe I wasn't completely ready to fling myself out there just yet, but I am proud of myself for taking a big step toward the bigger leap that I will take, some fine day. In the meantime, I will keep flipping through those notebooks and the chapters I have written and pat myself on the back for having the courage to live this life and to talk about it in the first place.

We still have a sliver of Northern Arizona summer heat retreat left on our plates. I am grateful to have made strides this summer toward my goal of becoming an author. I am also grateful to have more tales to tell as the journey continues. I could not have done it without YOU, my cheering section! As I always say, onward and upward.

Let's see what happens in the fall, y'all.

Ever your storyteller,

Brenda Cordray

"The Desert Rose"

Whatever you do, keep that fire burning.

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