It always matters to someone. Always.

I just heard that today, April 27, is Tell a Story Day. So, in honour of that, here’s a little story-within-a-story.

Some of you reading this blog are writers and know how it feels to tell a story. For those of you who are not writers, this is a pretty accurate representation:

It’s difficult to know, when you’re in the process of writing, whether a story is any good. It’s actually pretty easy to believe that no one will want to read it, or that people who do read it will wonder what you were even thinking when you decided you could do that. And sometimes, all that self-doubt becomes overwhelming and you begin to suspect you’ve lost the ability to tell a story at all. If you ever had it.

When I started writing this A to Z Challenge story, I said I was doing it to kick-start myself out of a creative slump. And that’s true. But the full truth is that I’d managed to convince myself I couldn’t write fiction. That any ability I had to tell a story had disappeared. It’s a scary feeling.

So I decided to write something this month that “didn’t matter.” Something completely outrageous and ridiculous and out of the ordinary, something I’d never done before. So, if I failed, I could shrug and say, “Oh well, it was ridiculous anyway.” My expectations for it to even make sense were very low.

I didn’t expect it to be so much fun. And I certainly didn’t expect all the lovely comments or the “likes” or the new blog followers I’ve gathered along the way. Every single one has been a delightful gift.

So, while I still have your attention, I wanted to say thank you. I’ve had a blast rediscovering my ability to tell a story, and it has been a privilege to have you all along for the ride on this unlikely adventure.

Several people have encouraged me to publish this story (someplace other than my blog) once it’s done. And probably I will. I can’t imagine this story is the kind of thing an agent or publisher would be interested in taking on, so most likely I’ll go the self-pub route again. [Did you know I have other books? They’re listed here.]

That will only happen after I complete the edit/re-write process, during which the story will no doubt get longer. Maybe even more ridiculous. Who knows.

If any of you are interested in hearing that news — and I totally understand if you’re not — I’ll announce it first via my mailing list. You should sign up! My intention is to only send out notices when new fiction is available, so you won’t be signing up for spammy ramblings of what I ate for breakfast or how the cat is doing. I limit that kind of stuff to my blog.

Okay, so that’s it for my small contribution on Tell a Story Day. Now on to the bigger task of telling a story during the month of April.

I think I’ve almost decided on a word for the letter X and probably should start writing that post. I wonder what’s going to happen next . . .