Let’s Play “Get to Know You”

Greetings friends! I have never really done a “Who am I?” blog. If you already read and follow my blog, thank you; you are awesome! And if you have read things I have written, then you might already have a sense of what is important to me.

I live in the Washington DC area, with my husband and two preteen/teen kids. We also have a happy golden retriever, Keely.

I used to have a career as a technology trainer, even though I studied French and Spanish in college.  I have stayed home with my kids for the past few years (approximately since they were born) filling my days with lots of fun but unpaid volunteer work.

I recently turned my volunteer hours at the school library into an official paid position as a substitute librarian, and so I consider myself to be a “sometimes librarian” and have also been identified as “Shelverine” by literally only one friend.

My sister wrote a book! It’s not published yet, though. This is relevant because at the end of 2016, she and I attended a writing and motivational workshop. I attended in a supportive role. By the time I left, I decided to write my own book.

Following the workshop, I dug out my journals from my exchange student year living in Spain, and got to work. Today, the book is finished. Well, I should clarify, the manuscript is finished, and I’m somewhere in the third-ish draft of editing.

I have discovered two major benefits – aside from the fact that I have created a book out of a year of my life – to this journey so far. One has been reconnecting with the friends I made during my year in Spain. Rekindling those bonds has been amazing and rewarding; I even wrote a blog about reconnecting specifically with one friend who lived in the same Spanish town with me during our exchange year.

The other major benefit has been– drumroll please – Twitter! I discovered, as the writing of the manuscript/book was coming to an end, that there are major communities of wonderful people out there, tweeting!

My sister and I attended another workshop in Philadelphia in April 2017. While there, we connected with a few other writers and that is where I learned about the #5amWritersClub. Yes this is real and not a joke. It is just one example of many supportive communities out there on Twitter.

It has also been an interesting journey in the past several months since I have shared with people from my everyday circles of friends that I’m writing a book, as I have learned about other people who are writing, who have written, or who plan to write books. If you have a book inside you, write it! One of the most beneficial take-aways from Andrew Jobling’s workshop is about self-talk. Andrew encourages that if you’re going to have self-talk (which we all do all the time), why not make it positive self-talk? There is plenty of negativity out there in the world, so if you’re going to tell yourself something, you might as well tell yourself that you are great and that you will succeed. Why not?

So there are many things that matter to me. My family, my friends– whether those are in my neighborhood or around the world – my book club, my scrapbooking friends– reading, libraries and bookstores, culture and the arts, Hamilton the Muscial, science because it’s real, my favorite podcasts, learning, laughing, and being entertained.