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~ By Terri Ann Leidich, President of BQB Publishing

During a tea break the other day, as I sat and gazed off into the beautiful Virginia countryside, I literally sighed from contentment. While tea breaks are rare, and I often work twelve to sixteen hours a day, I am working at something I love and am passionate about . . . and what a difference that makes!

At the age of sixteen, I wanted to be a published writer but didn’t have a clue what that meant or how it could be accomplished, so I gave up the dream and went on to other things that “made sense.” I had success, became an entrepreneur, made differences in other people’s lives, and carved out a comfortable living, but all along, the things I did felt like “have to do’s” and not “want to do’s.”

Life flew by, and before I knew it, I had turned sixty. Yikes! How did that happen? Did that mean I was now old and should just sit back and be happy with what I had done with my life, or did it mean I needed to put my life on overdrive and figure out just what my purpose was and why I was here in the first place? I didn’t have a clue. So in my quiet moments that I call reflecting (some people call meditation and others call prayer), I opened up questions to the Universe . . . Why am I here? What is my purpose?

And, my question was answered in my mind with another question . . . What are you passionate about?

At first, that didn’t help me a bit, and I had the same response that my children would express when they came to me to solve their problems and I’d present them with a question. They didn’t want to hear another question; they wanted me to give them the answer. What they didn’t realize then and what I didn’t want to recognize with my joust with the Universe was that the question was the answer.

What was I passionate about? The question rattled about in my mind for several days when an opportunity came up for me to do some freelance writing. Writing! That’s it! I love to write and express myself. So I started writing for other people even though I had drawers of stories and novels I had written over the years intending to “someday do something with.” As I wrote for others, I knew it was time to delve into my “stash” of writing. When I did, the floodgates of passion opened. What a feeling!

Completing my first book From a Grieving Mother’s Heart led to the issue of getting it published, which led to the choice of going the traditional route and expecting rejection before even having a smidgen of hope. It felt as though my passion had been met with huge buckets of cold water that washed it into hopelessness.

Then I checked out self-publishing, but discovered too many self-published books that lacked quality editing and design. The options didn’t look good. But that indelible spirit that resides in all of us refused to give up. I had reconnected with the passion for writing that I had felt when I was sixteen, and I wasn’t going to give up that easy. One day as I was bemoaning the issue to my husband, he calmly looked at me and said, “Maybe you’re being told if you can’t find it, create it. You’re an entrepreneur. Put that knowledge and experience together with your passion.” Smart man!

The end of this story is that I created BQB Publishing and am now living my passion by writing as well as publishing the works of other talented new writers. Each day, I experience the truth in the saying “following your passion adds sweetness to life.”