There's No Expiration on Dreams By Loralee Lillibridge

Ask me to write a blog and my brain freezes immediately. Why is that? When my editor at Tell-Tale asked me to write one for their site, my solution was to do the grocery shopping I’d been putting off. I know that doesn’t make sense, but believe it or not, that’s where I found the topic for this blog…right there among the packaged produce. I hope you find something worthwhile here.

Do you check expiration dates on products when you’re shopping? I do. I think those dates are important to the buyer. Who wants a bag of salad greens that only has one day of freshness left and you need a salad three days from now? Bananas are another matter. There’s no expiration date printed on them, but you know the green ones will last the longest. You want your money’s worth on your purchase. With the price of gas, you can’t run to the store every day. Makes sense to me, but what about the products that have no expiration date? When do they become out-of-date? A month? A year? Never? As I accumulated more birthdays, I resisted buying those green bananas, but never considered giving up my dream. Most things we purchase eventually wear out – clothes, furniture, cars, but I have found something that never expires unless you let it. Something I’m sure everyone has, and that’s a dream.

Trust me, there’s NO EXPIRATION DATE ON DREAMS. If there were, I would have stopped writing a long time ago. But I’m a true dreamer. My very first book sale came just weeks before my fiftieth wedding anniversary. Yes, FIFTY. I had been pursuing publication for twenty years. The love of telling stories was part of my life. When I dreamed, I dreamed BIG. Why not?

That first book did well and I thought, “Great, I’m on my way.” In my dream, I sold book after book, but that didn’t happen. This spring, six years later, I was still pursuing sale number two. Sometimes the dream lost a little of its luster, but it never expired. I wrote, I submitted, I re-wrote, submitted again. I kept learning my craft every chance I got.Opportunitydoors opened. Those same doors closed. Rejections came on a regular basis for awhile. I briefly thought about quitting, but every time I tried, the dream pushed and prodded me to continue. My supportive critique group kept me on track with words of encouragement. When life got in the way, I paused, then took a detour with their help. The persistent dream was always there.

I could talk a long time about those in-between years when health, family issues and everyday problems interfered, but that’s all in the past. The important thing I want to say now is this – my dream has never expired. It still accompanies me every day. I delight in bringing the characters of my imagination to life. I become connected to their lives, their problems, their community. With the help of technology, I can go anywhere in the world I want. It brings me joy to share my stories with others. My family now shares in that joy and that makes the dream even more important. Hopefully, my dream will inspire others to share their dreams through writing.

In April of this year, that persistent dream became a reality with the sale of ALL THAT MATTERS to Tell-Tale Publishing. I was over-the-moon happy when that happened and I can’t wait to share that book with you in September.

The story of Buddy Lee Walker and Faith Morgan is the emotional tale of love between the boy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the daughter of the town banker who refused to believe their differences were important. I hope you’ll read the book when it’s released September 9, 2011.

I am forever grateful to the staff at Tell-Tale for believing in my dream. I like to think I’ve been part of their dream, too. I have many more stories to tell, so I’ve started buying green bananas again. I plan to be around to enjoy them, too.

I’ve learned my dreams have no expiration date. How about yours? I’d love to hear about them.