Nerves!

See that last button there on the right side of this blog? The one that says "Listen to Your Mother"? Click on it. Look around, maybe click "St. Louis" under the "Local Shows" tab, and then come back here with a full understanding of why I am freaking out. Wednesday. Wednesday, people. That's when I'll find out if I am eligible to audition for my city's INAUGURAL Listen to Your Mother show. I've been following the beauty of Listen to Your Mother ever since Stacey of Is There Any Mommy Out There? first hosted the Spokane show.

When I saw the videos, I thought to myself, "I want to do that." I told myself, "When it comes to St. Louis, I will do that." And here it is. As soon as I found out that St. Louis was doing a show this year, I searched my blog for anything I might read in front of an audience. But I didn't find it. The stand alone blog post that said everything I wanted to say did not exist. So I copied and pasted full blog entries into a massive word document and set about trying to cut out the unimportant stuff to distill my story down to its essence. But it all seemed so important. I picked a topic, edited. Picked another topic, edited. And then I did it once more for good measure. I had three separate stories that I still didn't feel like any one of them said everything I wanted to tell. In desperation, I surprised myself by contacting Stacey for help. I've been following her blog for years now, leaving comments here and there, but this was my first time sending her an email. She is such a brilliant and beautiful writer, with experience behind the scenes of LTYM, so I knew she could help me narrow down my story to its core. She was so gracious in her help, and she did an unbelievable job plucking the finest grapes from my tangled vines of text and distilling them into a subtle and honest wine. It was perfection.... but it still didn't say quite enough, so I muddled it up again, put it in an email to the St. Louis show producers, and hit "send" before I could get stuck in editing no-man's land.

That was back in January.

I immediately got the automated, "We got your story, thanks!" reply, but haven't heard anything since. The last day for submissions was Friday. The names of those writers picked to audition will be revealed on Wednesday. I'm a bundle of nerves.

I just reread the piece I submitted. I think I've got a shot. I mean, who else has had 33 week old preemies 2 years apart under a full blue moon and a super moon? And who else learned from the challenges encountered with preemie #1 to successfully overcome those same challenges and breastfeed preemie #2? That's a unique and original story, right? One with obstacles faced and desires won. It's interesting, right? RIGHT???

Wish me luck.


UPDATE: I was accepted to audition!!! I am one of 30 people chosen to audition out of an initial group of 60 submissions. I audition this Thursday 2/28. We'll be narrowed down to 12-15 for the final show. One step closer!!! Fingers crossed!