by Bethany Turner, @SeeBethanyWrite

As I write this, I’m staring at an unpacked suitcase and (mostly) folded piles of laundry. I feel excited and overwhelmed and full of anticipation and wracked with uncertainty, all at once. My nineteen-year-old son and I begin a trip to New York City tomorrow, and I can hardly wait. This whole thing is many months in the making, and we’ve been counting down the days like giddy schoolchildren waiting for the final bell to ring at the end of the last day before summer break. New York is my favorite city in the world. I really can’t explain the power it has over me, but for whatever reason, New York makes sense to me, and I make sense to myself when I am there. I’m so excited to introduce my son to New York, and to share it with him. This will be the first trip the two of us have taken alone since he was an infant who sat on my lap on the plane, and it will certainly be the first extended period of time we’ll share as two adults, rather than as a mother and her little boy. (Don’t tell him, but of course I still see it that way, as well…)

I’m excited. But I’m also already a little bit disappointed. When we bought our airline tickets and reserved our hotel, New York was celebrating its grand re-opening. Covid cases were dwindling, restrictions were softening, theaters and restaurants were beginning to thrive once again. And now? Well, it all looks a bit different now. Covid has seen to that. Again.

But you know what? We’re still taking the trip. And I’m counting on there being pivotal, memorable moments that we’ll look back on and treasure. We’re nervous and extremely cautious. Plans and reservations are giving way to flexibility and spontaneity. We’re prepared, but we also have no idea what’s in store.

It’s gotten me thinking about the expectations and dreams we all carry with us on our journey as writers. Some of us dream of writing a bestseller while others of us will be perfectly content if only we can see our words in print. Some of us dream of signing with a big five publisher while others of us value having complete control of our work above all else. Some of us just want to put our story out there and see what happens while others of us are currently on step sixteen of our meticulous master plan. I would guess no two of us have the exact same expectations, but we all have something we’re dreaming of and/or working toward. I’ve discovered (and continue to discover all the time) that who I am hasn’t been shaped by my expectations so much as by my response to life not playing out according to them.

Has your path played out the way you wanted it to? Exactly the way you thought it would? No? Yeah…I get it. Some of it’s been better than I ever would have imagined, and I wouldn’t dare change a thing; some of it I would give just about anything to be able to call “Do over!” on…like I’m a kid playing in the front yard, not happy with the way I rolled the kickball. But I don’t get to start over. Truthfully, I wouldn’t want to. I just get to go on from here—changed (hopefully, for the better) by the met and unmet expectations.

As we kick off another year in this journey we’re on, let’s never waste an unmet expectation and never take the ones that fall into place for granted. Each and every expectation—met and unmet—has the potential to be the one we look back on and say, “Oh, yeah…that was the moment…”

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Plot Twist

An aspiring screenwriter has a chance encounter with an actor who could be the man of her dreams. Over the next ten years, she’ll write the story . . . but will he end up being the star?

February 4, 2003, promises to be a typical day for Olivia Ross—a greeting card writer whose passion project is a screenplay of her own. But after she and a handsome actor have a magical meet-cute in a coffee shop, they make a spontaneous pact: in ten years, after they’ve found the success they’re just sure they’re going to achieve, they’ll return to the coffeehouse to partner up and make a film together. The only problem? Olivia neglected to get the stranger’s name. But she doesn’t forget his face—or the date.

For the next ten years, every February 4 is marked with coincidences and ironies for Olivia. As men come and go and return to her life, she continues to write, but still wonders about the guy from the coffee shop—the nameless actor she’s almost certain has turned out to be Hamish MacDougal, now a famous A-lister and Hollywood leading man.

But a lot can happen in ten years, and while waiting for the curtain to rise on her fate, the true story of Olivia’s life is being written—and if she’s not careful, she’ll completely miss the real-life romantic comedy playing out right before her eyes.

Bethany Turner writes romantic comedies for a new generation of readers who crave fiction that tackles the thorny issues of life with humor and insight. Her titles include The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck, Wooing Cadie McCaffrey, Hadley Beckett’s Next Dish, Plot Twist, and the upcoming The Do-Over.  A former bank vice-president and a three-time cancer survivor (all before she turned 35), Bethany now serves on the executive leadership staff of a growing church in Southwest Colorado, where she lives with her husband and their two teenaged sons. For her romantic comedy novels, Bethany has been awarded multiple Selah Awards, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, been repeatedly named to Family Fiction’s annual list of 40 Essential Romance Authors, and been a finalist for the Vivian Award and the Christy Award. But she’s also received some of the most fabulous one-star reviews ever written! (Seriously…there are some absolute gems in there.) Hang out with Bethany at seebethanywrite.com or @seebethanywrite across social media platforms, where she’s likely to be found celebrating those one-star reviews and obsessing over Colin Firth. Text her at (970) 387-7811.