A Writer's Prompt

“Show me where you bleed,” the editor from a prominent magazine said in her session at the writer’s conference.
“I can do that,” I thought to myself and planned the next submission I would write for her. It was my first writer’s conference and to say I was overwhelmed was an understatement. Actually I thought I bled plenty in the manuscript she critiqued. I was about to hit the big 5-0 soon and the young, petite, blonde, “totally altogether” editor had terrified me, quite unintentionally when we had our appointment.
What was I even doing at a writer’s conference? I was totally out of my element, a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom who aspired to write at this late stage of life. I had always wanted to get a book published while I still looked enough like that glamour shot picture I had taken back when I was forty. Oh well, no chance of that; and especially not now that I am pushing 59. It took me 9 more years to get the courage to go back to a conference. I am now hooked on them; I couldn’t wait until the next year’s conference. They seem to get better and better each time.
Ten years from the time I met the beautiful editor I saw her again. Guess what? She didn’t terrify me. In fact I thought she was quite mellow and I even made an appointment with her again. She didn’t really want to see anything I had to offer but I enjoyed our conversation and her seminars. She didn’t even remember asking us to “show me where you bleed,” all those years ago. I walked through facing some personal fears about meeting with editors this year and came out smiling.