The Writing Carnival

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By Kathleen Y’Barbo-Turner

In a few days, I will be attending ACFW’s national conference. Other than the year I got married (2010), I have attended every ACFW conference ever held-including the tiny one in Houston in the early, early days of the organization.

I can’t wait to see my writing friends, to meet with editors and my agent, and to soak in the atmosphere that comes along with a conference of this sort. We laugh, we cry, we worship, and we go deeper in our search for bettering our writing skills.

To a writer-at least this one-attending a conference of this sort is better than an afternoon at the Porter Peach Festival (which is a whole lot of fun!). Seriously. At the end of the conference, I’m always excited about what I’ve learned and anxious to put those things into practice. In short, I’m pumped about writing.

And then I get home-back to real life-all ready to do the real work of writing. The part that requires persistence, practice, prayer, and a whole bunch of patience. The part that’s not always fun.

The practice of putting words and sentences on paper in some sort of meaningful way is not always a big happy carnival complete with giant funnel cakes, chicken on a stick, and flags blowing in the breeze. Sometimes it’s hard. Really hard.

But I get to do it. I get to write. I get to. I am privileged, chosen, humbled, and above all honored…to write.

And I’ll take that carnival over any other, even if it doesn’t come with chicken on a stick.

Don’t you agree?


Bestselling author Kathleen Y’Barbo is a multiple Carol Award and RITA nominee of over forty novels with more than one million copies of her books in print in the United States and abroad. A certified family law paralegal and tenth-generation Texan, she was recently nominated for a Career Achievement Award by Romantic Times magazine. Find out more about Kathleen and her books at www.kathleenybarbo.com.

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