This is lame, but let's talk about how we got here.

I'm a Virgo and I need to start from the very beginning.

Every time I’ve started something as an adult, my initial thought before I actually started the thing was that I was probably already too late for the party. People of the 2023 internet era might call this ~imposter syndrome,~ and they could be right… but it could also be that I have a real aversion to showing up late to a party or anywhere else. I’m not sure if you clocked the subtitle of this post, but I am a Virgo (happy birthday week to me!), which entitles me to all kinds of high-strung behavior around things like arrivals, departures, transportation, and just how mad everyone in a given room might be at me at any given moment.

(For what it’s worth, one of the quotes posted on the bulletin board above my desk is: “I come by it honestly, but I can choose something different.” So, yes, I’m entitled to those anxieties and intensities—Virgo and otherwise—but I also am grateful for the opportunities I get to work on them to make life a little easier. More on that later, I’m sure.)

ANYWAY, when I decided that I wanted to explore this little Substack universe, I experienced my usual thought pattern. So many people I respect and admire are already creating thoughtful content here, and if they’re the hosts of the party who hung up the great decorations and curated a thoughtful playlist—as well as that cohort of guests who have managed to nail the whole “fashionably late” thing with great snacks in hand—I feel like I’m the girl awkwardly knocking on the door after trying two incorrect addresses, forgetting the bottle of wine she bought just for the occasion on the counter at home, and somehow managing to get caught in a downpour that no one else clocked. And being that girl is kind of a nightmare for me.

So, yeah… I do feel this weird compulsion to explain myself. Call it imposter syndrome or something else, but, in any case, I have the whole story to share.

Here’s the essence of it: I’ve been obsessed with writing for as long as I can remember, and I’m not just saying that because I don’t feel like asking my parents for the hard data on when I first picked up a notebook and pencil. (For the record, they also probably don’t remember a time when I didn’t love to write.) Over the last seven-almost-eight years, I’ve explored what feels like dozens of ways to make a living and carve a path for myself using that passion as a guide. As a freelancer, I’ve managed to make that happen—and I’ve been lucky enough to stretch those efforts into a more broad spectrum of storytelling as a book podcaster, bookstagrammer, writing teacher, and now an agented fiction writer. It’s all been—and continues to be—fun and hard and confusing and cool, but at this juncture, I want to create a place where I can bring all of those parts of me together and just… write. I rarely get to write in my own voice, and I’m almost always strategizing my subject matter to fit into a given project.

So, here we are, amid some big professional changes, a few months before I shift from dog-mom to human-baby-and-dog-mom, and on the verge of my thirty-third birthday (Virgo season, baby!). And I couldn’t be more excited to work on bringing it all together with Getting It Alli Together.