If I Click My Heels Three Times...

The last few weeks have flown by in a flurry of activity that I once dreamed I'd be part of.

Since "Timeless Night" was accepted by Breathless Press, I have been chin deep, daily, in things completely and wholly related to the book. I've met my personal Editor, Jayne. And while I though I knew a lot about editing and I did, there is a whole world out there I had only barely glimpsed. When I worked as Assistant Associate Editor for Newsgraphics, Inc, it was a rather smallish, family owned company that focused on magazines and office newsletters more than anything, with the occasional books thrown my way, but again. They were all technical, business related prose and that's a whole different gig.

Speaking with Jayne has been like diving into this endless well of knowledge and I'm soaking it up like a sponge with all the greedy finesse of a wide eyed child.

It's sublime and wonderful, even in the midst of deadlines and what others may view as "work", it's all WIN to me.

I won't lie, I've given myself a few panic/anxiety attacks since I found out the book was going to be published. "What if's" float through my head with crazy speed and my biggest enemy, SELF DOUBT, has been working on hardcore overtime. But I'm managing to silence those demons so I can hear the angels sing.

And to think, I almost didn't take this risk. 20 years ago, I had written a book and been rejected. And with all the dramatic panache of a 20+ young woman, I raised my fist to the heavens and swore "Never Again." It hurt too much to open your soul up and get shredded as I'd been shredded. Or so I thought.

Fact was, I knew nothing then. Nothing of life, of love, of heartache, of real joy, real despair. I was Snow White skipping through the forest and singing to the animals. But then life handed me a shiny red apple and I bit into it and spent 20 years trolling through a Van Gogh-ish lifescape that forced me to look into the very depths of my being, of seeing all I was...and was not.

I've experienced the pinnacles of happiness. I've traveled the bleak road of misery. I've tasted the nectar of the Gods and I've reigned in my personal hell.

And I wouldn't change a single thing. All the tears, all the hurt, all the smiles, all the insanity is wrapped up and enmeshed together and added far more knowledge to the package of me.

I've fought battles no one can imagine to be right where I am now. And if it is a dream, if I'm in the merry ol' land of Oz, or tumbling down rabbit holes or bursting through my closet only to find Narnia...

I don't want to wake up.