On Decem­ber 15^th, six hours after sub­mit­ting Hooked’s final revi­sion, I lost my voice. Lit­er­al­ly. All these years a devot­ed dis­ci­ple of the “tell your sto­ry” gospel, and, upon sur­ren­der­ing that sto­ry for my editor’s review, I couldn’t man­age a rasp of a whis­per. (Dear Uni­verse, must you be so heavy-hand­ed in your metaphors?)

I won’t lie: the six weeks lead­ing up to that dead­line were rough, rem­i­nis­cent of the final push to get through the fish­ing sea­son, when Joel, the Ner­ka, and I all stag­ger into Sep­tem­ber, hang­ing on by threads of win­ter promis­es. I made sim­i­lar promis­es for all the things I’d do after the book was sent off, lin­ing the kitchen table with a sheet of butch­er paper and, when­ev­er I walked by, scrib­bling vows to neglect­ed friends and respon­si­bil­i­ties. Oil change. Renew driver’s license. Din­ner w/ Mom. Call AB. Hair­cut. Trim toe­nails. Our roof start­ed leak­ing, weeks of heavy Pacif­ic North­west rains dis­tilled to a steady drip from the kitchen light. I taped the switch off, spread tow­els across the linoleum, and went back to writ­ing. My left eye devel­oped a twitch.

Those butch­er paper promis­es end­ed up being just that – paper promis­es, fur­ther IOU’s. As soon as the book was out of my hands, I col­lapsed into bed for days. Hon­est­ly? Los­ing my voice was a relief. My loved ones want­ed to cel­e­brate this long-antic­i­pat­ed land­mark, but I didn’t feel cel­e­bra­to­ry. I felt unmoored, miss­ing the com­pan­ion that had so long anchored my days. This was a side of writ­ing a book that I hadn’t fore­seen: the lone­li­ness when it was gone, the uncer­tain­ty of what would take its place.

(A week into this feel­ing, I came upon a post by Dani Shapiro that per­fect­ly named it. Bereft. As if to bal­ance out the ham-fist­ed smack-down of strip­ping me of my abil­i­ty to tell any sto­ry, the uni­verse prof­fered just the right reas­sur­ance at just the need­ed time. I may have been sad, but I wasn’t alone.)

My voice returned, but I stayed qui­et. Sub­dued. I’ve shared deeply per­son­al writ­ing over recent years, yet it wasn’t until sub­mit­ting this final offer­ing that I felt tru­ly exposed. I didn’t want to do any­thing but hun­ker down with Joel and retreat.

But Joel wasn’t hav­ing it. He insist­ed I’d achieved a major life goal – a dream! – and that deserved recog­ni­tion. “You’re the one always telling me we choose how we feel. You can spend these weeks wait­ing and feel­ing mis­er­able about what might be, or you can be proud of what you accom­plished and enjoy this time we have togeth­er. It’s up to you.”

In my book and in life, Joel always has the best lines.

So I took his advice. That means re-appear­ing in my life, turn­ing my ener­gy out­ward. Giv­ing back to you who so gen­er­ous­ly car­ried me all these months. It means cel­e­brat­ing what is, while trust­ing what will be.

And it means being able to say yes to invi­ta­tions I would’ve had to decline ear­li­er this win­ter. Oppor­tu­ni­ties like Wage Slaves: the 78 Cents Edi­tion. I’m hon­ored to join Sonya Lea, Storme Web­ber, Michelle Penaloza, and Jean Bur­net in this Jan­u­ary 19^th read­ing about work, host­ed by Seattle’s Hugo House and pre­sent­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Hedgebrook.

Fol­low­ing that theme of work and writ­ing, I’m excit­ed for the Young Fishermen’s Sto­ry­telling Work­shop in Juneau on Jan­u­ary 30^th, a class spon­sored by the Alas­ka Marine Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil that I’ll be co-teach­ing with Alaskan author Miran­da Weiss. (If you’re think­ing about attend­ing the Alas­ka Young Fishermen’s Sum­mit 2016 that week, go ahead and plan on stay­ing one extra day to join us – we’re going to have a fan­tas­tic time!)

Fish­er­Po­ets Gath­er­ing, of course, is just around February’s cor­ner, the 26^th – 28^th this year. The sched­ule will be out soon, and there’s already an impres­sive line-up of vet­er­an favorites and first-timers. (Espe­cial­ly thrilling: Bel­ly Meat, Sitka’s favorite blue­grass band, is mak­ing the trip down to Astoria!)

Final­ly, at the AWP Con­fer­ence in Los Ange­les on March 31^st, Chris­tine Byl, Eva Sauli­tis, Susan­nah Mish­ler, Lu-Anne Haukaas Lopez, and I will talk about how phys­i­cal labor pro­vides the lifeblood for our cre­ative work, on the pan­el, Women at Work: Labor and the Writ­ing Life. If there could there be a more appro­pri­ate cap­stone to this winter’s themes, I can’t imag­ine it.

That’s what’s going on here, friends. If you’re able to make it to any of these events, I’d love to see you. Mean­while, thanks for leav­ing a light on – it feels good to be back with you, and I’m eager to hear how you’re doing. How’s 2016 treat­ing you so far? What are you cel­e­brat­ing, where are you focus­ing your ener­gy, what are you choos­ing to trust?