Transformations Midlife Can Bring
SweetSpot: Now and Then Takes A Look
Readers meet our midlife protagonist on the evening she declares to her husband of twenty-five plus years that she wants out. Over too many years, they’d had discussions about the sorry state of their marriage. But until that night, she never said those words out loud: “I want out.” Her words felt right.
A few days later, she drove down to a town south of Santa Barbara, California to attend her first writers conference, a birthday gift from her boss who promised to support her budding writing career provided she didn’t quit working for him once she became “rich and famous.” ‘A mensch of a man’ defined Mayor Brody.
The week ahead proved transformative; beyond what she could have imagined. At the opening night dinner, while standing in line at the bar, she met and chatted with Ray Bradbury. He was a conference ‘regular’ and while standing there, he asked about her work-in-progress, then followed up with several questions. At the end of their brief discourse Mr. Bradbury thoroughly seemed to enjoy, this literary icon offered her direction that once he said it, she knew he was right. Later that week, she attended a workshop headed by conference founder, bestselling author Barnaby Conrad, who listened to her read the opening page of her ‘how-to home gardening book’ before he stopped her to ask a few questions. Using her answers as grist, he suggested a new opening scene she hadn’t even considered. Of the other fascinating writers she met that week, two more stood out; her roommate, Susan, an MTV producer and writer who had been attending the conference “since Christ rose,” and Clive Charles, the workshop leader whose interest in her seemed to extend beyond writing.
Darlene left the conference a better writer for it, the experience bolstering her resolve to become a published author. Given the shift her family would be making, Darlene expected the coming year to revolve around that shift, and though it did, what she hadn’t expected took up far more time.
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