Last night I pressed the “publish” button for A Better Life. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting — balloons to fall from the ceiling? Applause? What I received was a message that now it is “under review.” It was a bit anti-climactic to say the least. But I reminded myself that I am another step closer to being a published author and I will hear from them within 72 hours, hopefully with the date of its release. Then the promotion begins!

I have a quote by Robert Frost on the bulletin board above my desk, surrounded by pictures of my grandchildren. It is from an address he gave to students at Amherst College, where he talks about four beliefs, one of which is:

” . . . the literary belief, in every work of art, not of cunning and craft, mind you, but of real art; that believing the thing into existence, saying as you go more than you ever hoped you were going to be able to say, and coming with surprise to an end that you foreknew only with some sort of emotion.”

I always believed Margaret and Jenny had a story, and as I attempted to write it and as they revealed more and more of themselves to me, I came to believe that I was chosen to tell it. Writing their story was full of emotion and surprises, right up to two nights ago, as I thought about Jenny. I thought about the ending and realized someone else was there at the very end, a person I believe will make a difference in Jenny’s life. Funny how I hadn’t known before, and here I was acknowledging her presence only the morning of the day I pressed the “publish” button. I feel better now. I may always worry a little about Jenny and Margaret, but maybe not as much now.

I began this journey after a dream. I had rarely written anything before, but that dream was so real. As soon as I woke up I grabbed a yellow pad of paper and wrote it down. I wrote more about how I felt, the panic and excitement, than I wrote about the events, though they were there, too. I couldn’t believe I would do what I did in the dream, but in the morning I felt it all, still. These were my first inklings of Jenny and Margaret, the two main characters in my book to come out soon, more than fifteen years after that dream.
It was a pretty long journey.
I wonder if it would have been the same story if I had written it in a shorter amount of time. There are so many ways a story can come out. I like to believe this was Jenny and Margaret’s story. I like to believe I was true to them. There were so many pages, hundreds of pages of happenings and dialogue that I contrived that are long gone, thank goodness.
A Better Life is my first novel, and this is my first post, to take you along at the beginning of my journey, the one I am just beginning. Putting myself out there, being so public, is something I have pretty much dreaded, but I have come to believe I will enjoy it. It is early, though. I will make sure I make time and take time to work on my new novel. I don’t want to let down my new cast of characters and it won’t take another fifteen years.