Becoming Lucky

I’ve thought a bit about luck since I sold my manuscript to Tricycle Press.

My musings on the subject were renewed after the excellent event I attended last weekend - the Santa Barbara County Education Office's Breakfast with the Authors. The featured speaker was the 2007 Newbery Award winning author of The Higher Power of Lucky, the talented and entertaining Susan Patron. The title of her talk was Becoming Lucky: Taking Chances. Several other authors spoke briefly of their own experiences of luck, and taking chances. They were all enjoyable and enlightening.

My old Webster’s dictionary defines luck as 1) a force that brings good fortune or adversity or 2) the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual.

Alexis O’Neill spoke of her luck in having her supportive Irish/Scottish parents, who gave her a childhood of music and storytelling, and of her lifetime of taking chances which led her into writing. She said luck doesn’t just happen to you. You make it happen.

Barbara Jean Hicks said luck came with courage, the chances she had taken, hard work and the support of those around her who believed in her.

Thalia Chaltas read the dictionary definition of luck she had found: a purposeless, unpredictable and uncontrollable force which shapes events favorably or unfavorably.

But the consensus of the writers who spoke Saturday seemed clear:  being writers, being published takes luck – the kind of luck that occurs with hard work and being willing to take chances along the way. That it is possible to make your own luck.

And I agree.