Reality Check

Now that my blog is private I feel safer, more secure, about what I can and want to say here. It's a nice feeling after the last few weeks of growing more and more exposed online. I have to laugh at my one New Years Resolution that I truly did have the best intentions of carrying out: blogging more. In a way, I guess, I have been. Just not here, not on this blog. How could I have known that a few weeks after making that resolution that my life would shift in a new direction (ie phase 2 of my publishing journey) forcing my focus to be dedicated almost entirely to my new Internet home (ie my book website) and basically, the online world in general. Such a huge percentage of my days are spent on my laptop, contacting, connecting, networking. Business, business, business. But what a business it is. This is my business now. I am, by trade, a writer. An author. A novelist. All of the above. And it feels akin to standing on the highest peak of a very tall mountain. I did it. I made it. My book isn't printed yet, but it's being printed as we speak and one day in the very near future I will receive a package on my doorstep--a box. And it will be full of my books. My book. My precious piece of me that I dug from somewhere deep in my gut and laid out in word form. A fraction of my soul.

And because of this thing I've created, my life is changing. Every day, I can feel it. Undoubtedly one of the most exciting, anticipating times of my life, and it's only going to change more. I already find myself struggling to stay grounded to reality, to break away from this high I'm riding to clean my house, remind my children and husband why I'm here and that I love them more than words can say. And then I read yet another 4 star review from someone who fell just as in love with my Jude and Olivia as I did, who hurt when she hurt, who cried tears of joy when she did, who fell in love with Jude as Olivia did and my dream is fulfilled. I'm right back up there, up in the clouds, riding that high. This was my dream, my goal, when I started this journey: to have people--even one person, but hopefully the world--love my story as much as I do. I could quit and walk away right now, before the first royalty check ever comes in, and die happy.

I'm a writer, and a mother, and a wife, except not in that order. And that is all I want to be.