Writing Cheerleaders

Twenty-five years ago at this time I was busy moving my husband's shop equipment, packing our household goods into boxes, moving to my parents' home temporarily, finding a place for three mules and a horse (we had no fences to speak of on our property yet) AND trying to hold down my job as the director of the mental health clinic in Bend, Oregon while Jerry and friends came north to build the barn/shop/hangar on our homestead, 160 acres of rattlesnake and rock. I thought I hopped through a lot of hoops that year.
Here we are and I'm still hopping but with a lot more fun.
This week I wrote "The End" to the sequel of A Flickering Light that will be out in April. It's now titled "An Absence so Great;" and my author copies of A Flickering Light arrived on the homestead! Of course, it's not really the end: I have author notes and book group questions to write; there'll be revisions after my editor sees it; I'll be following up on questions raised by copy editors. Still, there is cause to celebrate.
We celebrate these moments (what I call the midwife role in writing) because if we wait until we achieve success -- give final birth -- we miss out on the joy along the way. We writers give our hearts to these stories and we need to find midwives who will cheer with us. My cheerleaders this week were the library staff of our new Sherman County Public School Library that we'll dedicate on Saturday. They've watched each of my books come out and made sure I saw the shelf at the new library where my novels now stretch. Pretty terrific. Books. What would I do without them.
Don't forget to take a look at the trailer for the book based on my grandmother's life as a turn of the century photographer. http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=225666529779c412cad0 Enjoy! And keep writing...