That Thrill Again

Book number six arrived yesterday. My publisher and all her minions worked tirelessly to put it all together to insure delivery before my April 29th launch date. I marvel at the process from the first tiny seed of thought that makes its way to the page, the hours of unravelling the story , the months of revising and fleshing out the work , the submission , the acceptance, the editing, perfecting, developing, the designing of cover and interior, the proof reading, the back and forth checking and tweaking, the printing and the shipping. The work sounds daunting and I probably missed some steps and the book has flaws and mistakes( Burton found one in the first two minutes of perusing the book)but I am perfectly all right with that because life has mistakes. Nothing is perfect but effort and intent are everything as far as I'm concerned and this morning as I look at the boxes of books waiting to be sent out into the world I am proud of the work that was done. And thrilled I might add. My dream of writing and being published has been realized six times. I continue to write, now working on book number ten and the writing is the light I go to. I have been accused of writing books that are difficult to read without choking up or shedding a tear. I remember apologizing for this at first after The Year Mrs. Montague Cried was published. I have long stopped apologizing. I remember hearing a writer say once that if you haven't cried and laughed over your own work you can't expect your readers to. I can honestly say I have done the laughing and the crying, and have in turn compelled my family to feel the emotion the pages hold. But what a thrill comes with it all. Yesterday Caleb had just arrived to feed his animals, I knocked on my office window and held up a book for him to see. He knew I was awaiting the arrival of the book and gave me a huge smile and a thumbs up. I had dragged him up to my office after I had written the first few pages excited to introduce him to Hazel. He had given an opinion about a piece of dialogue that didn't ring true to him and he was right on. So the thrill comes every step of the way, every single step of the way.