I saw one of my former middle school students last summer. She was working as a hostess at a restaurant while pursuing her degree at Middlesex Community College. We talked for a few minutes and she told me she thinks of me every time she sits down to write a paper for school.

“Even if I have no idea where it’s going, I just write. That’s what you always told us. Just write. So that’s what I do and it always works.”

Wise girl.

I have told this to hundreds of students over the years, and it is exactly what I need to remember when I sit down to write and don’t have a clear and definite knowing of where I am going. The act of writing, putting pen to paper or fingers on the keys encourages thoughts and details to come out and eventually something meaningful will emerge — a single sentence that leads to another, a paragraph that makes you feel something. I told them about the joy I experience when I am writing and something surprises me, when a character does or says something I didn’t expect. Students were skeptical at first, but they always liked that idea because there is something magical about it. Sometimes in class a student would exclaim, “Mrs. Murphy! It just happened to me, what you said about being surprised!” And I knew it was true because of the light in the student’s eyes and the way the pencil continued to fly across the paper.

Writing is discovering. Writing is sitting with a blank piece of paper and creating something that has never existed before. That is something else I shared with my students that inspired them to put their own words on paper. It is magic that both children and adults can believe in. The act of creation. Good or bad, we do our best at the time with what we have within us and what we are brave enough to share.

It is a gift to have my words come back to me exactly when I need them.

Sometimes I feel so lost I can’t take one more step.

I am somewhere in the new story. I realized yesterday I am losing my characters, which tells me I have written something not true, so not true that the people whose stories I am supposed to tell are turning their backs on me, and I don’t blame them. It is time to stop, go back to the beginning so I can see more clearly what my characters are trying to tell me. They want to tell me who they are and I need to listen.

The marketing and promotion of A Better Life is different now than just three weeks ago. It doesn’t have that brand-new feeling anymore. A lot of people have bought the book, for which I am forever grateful, and now I am getting some reactions and comments. I welcome them all. I am looking forward to meeting with two book clubs in the next few months and hearing comments, answering questions as best I can, and discussing the story and characters.

I am not lost forever. I am looking ahead and even though I don’t see a well-defined, clear trail ahead, that doesn’t mean I am lost. It means I can make choices and look for different ways of promoting A Better Life that make sense in my mind and heart. And it means there is a lot of room for my new cast of characters to come alive.

Every day I try to create a sense of balance in my writing life, a life that has gone beyond writing and now includes promotion. It is not always an even balance, but so far it is working pretty well, most days. It can be challenging to devote all the time and energy my new novel deserves while promoting A Better Life so it has the best chance of being successful. I am finding that these very different opportunities keep my life as a writer rich and rewarding, as long as I don’t make myself crazy.

I am attempting to write at least a thousand words a day of the new novel. My characters are beginning to open up to me more each time we are together. This phase of writing a story is the most exciting for me because it is full of so many moments of discovery.

Some days, a great deal of time is taken up with some aspect of promotion. Yesterday I spent a big chunk of the day formatting my paperback into an e-book. It wasn’t as complicated as formatting the print copy and it is now available on Amazon in both print and on Kindle.

I have a host of things to explore: writers’ conferences, a marketing course, book readings, book clubs, getting the novel into local, independent book stores, contests . . . Right now, though, I am getting back to the new story.