Yesterday was the big day – the author photo day.

I am not at all photogenic, and getting me to knowingly allow a picture means either something really important is happening or else someone is standing on my foot so I can’t get away. However, a person with a blog also needs at least one decent shot of herself.

Fortunately, my husband had a plan. We would take a day trip into Wyoming, and get the picture according to the vision he had in his head. He doesn’t often steer me wrong, and I never turn down a day trip.

When we left, it was nearly fifty degrees and sunny. On a whim, I tossed our winter coats into the truck. Just in case. It is January. We are going to Wyoming. The weather forecast says snow is coming in overnight.

Apparently “overnight” means “around one PM”.

As we headed to our destination, there was a wall of low, dark clouds that seemed to be coming towards us nearly as fast as we approached it. By the time we hit the Proposed Photo Area, it was starting to snow lightly.

And the wind.

Wyoming is nicknamed either “The Cowboy State” or “The Equality State” (Wyoming was one of the first, if not the first, places in the US where women were explicitly given the right to vote). I’ve personally nicknamed it “The Gale Force Wind State”.

And yesterday was no exception. But in the spirit of the pioneering forebears, we sucked it up and got it done. Only when fat flakes began to fall sideways did we decide it was time to rejoin the interstate via the county road and get home.

Some might say it’s crazy to drive several hours to and from Wyoming (for any reason) to take a picture (when probably one taken in the backyard would do). Some might also say it’s crazy to pack winter coats when it’s fifty degrees and sunny.

I say it’s only a little crazy.

I

t’s always difficult to begin. That’s what I keep reminding myself.

A year ago, I started sending out query letters for a manuscript I “finished” in 2011. Difficult. I read everything Chuck Wendig ever wrote about the art form of the query letter. I browsed through Query Shark. I took notes. I made my friends read it to see whether it only made sense to me (you know who you are, and you know how much I owe you). I sent queries in the state of mind that you gotta have a ticket to win the lottery. I teased my husband that he could buy lotto tickets (he did) and I would send queries and we would race to see whether he would win the Powerball or I would get a request for a full manuscript first.

It wasn’t easy. I don’t like cold calls, either making or receiving, and sending emails to people I didn’t know asking them to look at creative work felt just like a cold call. I reminded myself that it only takes one “yes” (turns out that’s true after all) and that none of the rejections were personal – as it happened, all of the rejections were really quite polite. Not one included a reference to sticking with a day job. Everyone was very kind. It was still tough. I was lucky to have a few people who knew I was querying who would patiently listen to me threatening to quit but wouldn’t let me do it.

I was shocked when I won the lottery-ticket-or-request-for-full race and got a request.

Fast forward to today. There’s a lot I just skipped over, but those are stories for another time. This one is about beginnings.

It’s difficult to begin. Now I’m a person who needs a blog, and that blog needs something on it. It’s difficult to begin. It feels like I just wandered into a cocktail party where everyone already knows everyone else, and the party has been going on for a good hour and a half, and I’m late because I couldn’t find parking, and I finally parked about two miles away. And I stepped in dog crap on my way to the party because it was dark outside, so I had to deal with that before I could screw up the courage to knock on the door. And it’s difficult to begin.

But. The thing to remember is you only have to begin every once in a while, and after a while, it gets easier.

So I’m going to believe. It’s been true before.