A Dream Come True: My First Book e-Published: Love Got Me Here

At last, I’ve pressed that “publish” button!  First I want to say thank you to my friends at WryteStuff; you have been such an intrinsic part of my journey for the past year.  Your writing has inspired me, your comments have uplifted me.  Your love has embraced me and given me courage.  Your belief in me and enjoyment of my writing - when I totally didn’t expect it - has taught me to believe in myself.

So.  My first publishable book, huh!  I’ve written four others, three of which were utterly ghastly, and I’m not being self-deprecating!  But they were all grist to the mill, and I guess I was always moving towards this day when I could launch out into the world something I could be happy to tell everybody about.  A couple of years ago when I was hanging out around rock bottom I was walking to the beach one day wrestling with the fear that my life could never amount to anything.

Suddenly another thought came into my head of the what-if variety.  What if my life isn’t destined to go nowhere - what if the opposite is true?  What if I’m moving towards better and better times, and my destiny is actually to succeed at something, to experience love and community, to be happy?  What if there’s nothing in the universe I or anybody else can do to change that?

I held on to that, you can believe me!  Well, it looks like my happy what-if was closer to the truth than my unhappy one.  And I can truly say it’s because of the love and support I’ve received.  That’s what enabled me.  I've had tons and tons of rejection around my writing, but somehow it never stopped me.  And when I came here that rejection didn't happen.  Miraculous!  Last night I thought about that with some awe and a lot of gratitude as I stood with my finger hovering over that “publish” button just before midnight.

I thought about the challenges I’ve experience in writing this book and bringing it to completion, a difficult enough task in itself.  It started out with the seed of an idea, which I was pretty pleased with.  I held onto that for quite a while, then confronted the reality that I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how I could make enough of it for a whole book.  Somebody said that for them writing is mostly about staring at a blank page until your forehead bleeds, and I can say amen to that!

But here’s the thing.  The bleeding gave way, and seemingly out of nowhere, ideas started  happening.   Then of course the words poured out and I thought I was the cleverest thing since sliced bread.  Until I read what I’d written of course.  Groan.  More uphill as I edited and edited and changed and edited some more, wondering if I’d ever get this wretched book into shape.  Then I had to get my head around the internet e-publishing stuff which seemed utterly incomprehensible at first.

And now the thing is done.  My first publishable book published!  As I pressed the button I didn't have the rush of adrenalin I was expecting, I had instead a kind of majestic peace flood my body, it was amazing.  I slept like a baby and my dreams were wonderful.  This morning I woke up - and that adrenalin rush kicked in!  I'm kind of glad, I'd hate to have missed out on it!  now it's eight o'clock at night and I'm exhausted...  Happily exhausted, though.

I have a lot of marketing to do, but even though it's a big task, I don't feel particularly daunted.  I have lots of ideas, and I know that more will come.  In any case, I've built something from scratch before, I can do it again.  I'm stronger, and much wiser.  Plus this time I'm doing something I really love.  Now that is a dream come true.  So, one dream down and a bunch more to go!