I had very good intentions a week and two days ago. I intended to write and schedule several blogs to appear while I was away at a Novelist’s Inc. conference. I ran out of time, though, so sorry for the radio silence.

The conference is always a good way to re-energize and recommit to my writing career, and this year was no different. We met in St. Louis (we could see the arch out of one of the workshop floor-to-ceiling windows). I am exhausted and creatively re-energized at the same time.

One of the perennial themes at these conferences is the rollercoaster nature of our business. Up high one minute, down low the next. The conference tends to be a great place to remember that a writing career has a similarity to Maine weather — if you don’t like what the weather is doing at any given moment, just wait, it’s guaranteed to change soon.

I was reminded of that truth beautifully on the drive home from the conference yesterday. A writing friend and I, who are at similar points in our career at the moment, ambitiously decided that we wanted to drive rather than fly (she lives 5 hours from me, and when we set out from her house, it was a 2-day, 22 hour trip). Road trip. We planned to finish fleshing out the screenplay we are writing together for creative growth. of the 40+ hours driving, but we only got about 6 hours of actual plotting done (all good stuff, btw). The rest of the time we explored writing, life, and career dreams and frustrations. The driving flew by, up until we hit a rain storm. The rental car had a windshield that fogged up…on the outside…in the rain. Cue the rising tension music. The first time it happened on the trip down, we just stopped for the night. But when it happened on the second day of the trip back home, we weren’t going to stop.

We watched the clouds, the dark ones dropping rain overhead, and the light fluffy ones floating in blue sky ahead and on one side of us. We tried to keep ahead of the rain, but we were edging in and out of it all day and hoping it would be gone by nightfall, when the wonky windshield would make visibility difficult. And then, somewhere in upstate New York on the New York Thruway, a double rainbow appeared in front of us. It solidified and arched across the sky beside us as the sun on one side of the road shone into the rain clouds on the other side.

I’ve seen rainbows in my life, watery pale things that shimmered for a few minutes and disappeared too quickly. This rainbow was dark and clear, every band of color visible, from the palest violet to the deepest green, orange, yellow and red. I suggested to my friend that we should go after the pot of gold, since it couldn’t be very far away. She wisely pointed out that the rental was not all terrain.

The rainbow lasted a good twenty minutes, and even though I was driving I enjoyed every moment. I regret I didn’t have a camera with me so I could stop on the side of the road and take a picture to share with others who weren’t fortunate enough to be there. I don’t need a picture for myself, though. The rainbow is in my memory as bold and strong and bright as when it shone in the sky, reminding me that you don’t get rainbows without rain.