She Quit.

Yesterday my one solitary employee had the nerve to quit. With no resignation letter. No two weeks’ notice. No chance for me to even suggest a goodbye party.

We exchanged words in the Michael’s parking lot. Actually, I was the one speaking. (Or shouting… that’s up to your interpretation.) It sounded a little like this: “Noooooo… don’t leave me…” [#%*@]

I never knew until that moment of desperation how much I was able to imitate a good country song – despair, anger, and… fake profanity.

Eternal hope came in the form of my husband as he pulled up in the parking lot. Despite my inability to talk sense to my employee, my husband coaxed her (the Director of Transportation for the BJ Company) into sticking around for a few more moments.

But that’s all it lasted.

I shudder to even talk about it now, but I’m going to call my employee by her name – my Jeep.

I loved that Jeep. But she gave out on me. 20 feet from the gas station she died on a hill so steep we couldn’t even push her off the road.

As much as I wanted to blame my girl, kick her tires, and maybe yell a little… I couldn’t.

Because it was my fault.
I failed to refill her.

This may seem obvious, but the same rule applies to our writing. We can’t get mad at our mentors, at the publishing industry, at magazine editors – at anyone but ourselves when we fail to put in our best efforts.

There are a million writers with a million excuses out there. But guys, blaming our “employees” for our failures only makes us powerless to fix the problem.

So today I encourage you, along with myself, to put on our big girl panties and do something with our writing.

Rejection? Failure? Defeat? Just bumps in the road.

Let’s refuel... whether it's a writers' conference, an internship, a focused study on writing, or just actually WRITING...  let's give ourselves what we need to be our best.

It's either that or resort to fake profanity in the Michael's parking lot.