By my story sister Jennifer Upton

We sit at our computers, hers outside of Dallas, mine in Atlanta, and we write together. Click click click click, OKay, show me what you got. She thinks I am doing her a favor. I will finish my edits ahead of schedule because of her. I believe in this book again. When I read her some of the parts I have written, she laughs out loud in the coffee shop she is occupying and tells me she can’t wait for my audio book to come out. She thinks I am going to get a book deal that includes an audiobook. She believes in me. In this.

I have a partner in Story Sessions 201. Every Sunday we exchange chapters, except for when the Spirit not only tells me to rest, but tells her to tell me to rest. Then she makes sure I am resting. She gives me the hard truth about writing books, internet fame, the condition of my heart. I love her for her truth telling. I love her for her words, that she lets me peek into and savor before most.

I have a whole team of women, actually. They have been forcing me to see myself as a writer. As one who writes like she breathes and eats and sees. They don’t care that I have a full time job that I also love, or a pair of crazy babies. They don’t mind when I have to shout over the girls to say what I want to say on our conference calls that have become like church to me. The find it endearing. I do not have words for this. Me, the writer, my gratitude for them is too big for words.

I have found my tribe.

I am linking up with Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Fridays. Join me?