Dreams of INK

Fourteen hours until Ink is released and I feel as if I'm standing on a precipice, yet what waits below is not a deep chasm of treacherous rock and stone.

Today, I'm a published author, thanks to my short fiction. Tomorrow, though, I become a published novelist. Maybe it's only semantics and this whole thing is worthy of nothing more than a rolling of the eyes.

Except… Except…

Over the years, I heard things like "agents don't rep horror", "horror doesn't sell", and when I received the first rejection for the first query letter, I wondered if they were right. Second rejection. Ouch. By the fifth, they didn't hurt as much. And then came a request. I don't remember if it was a full or a partial, but what it meant was a maybe, a step up on a climb to somewhere that was a dream.

More waiting, more querying, more maybes, more nos. And then a yes. Another step.

And then came submission. More waiting, this time for editors, more maybes, more nos. Sometimes the nos cut so deep, I thought I'd bleed out before too long. Then came a yes. Another step. A huge one.

And now this.

I know tomorrow will bring giddiness and laughter and fear and anxiety, but right now, I have this almost ethereal feeling of accomplishment that tastes of honeysuckle and candyfloss. Call it luck, call it hard work, call it talent. But I didn't quit. I kept taking those steps. I kept climbing.

Now I'm standing on that precipice and what waits below is a dream I dared to believe in, and I hope I never forget what this feels like.