As many of you know, I sat down one evening in March of 2012 to write a book.  My intentions were to never speak… not to utter a single word about my endeavor. A private person on many levels, my plan was to write a story formulated just for my likes alone. This would be a story that only I would enjoy. My characters would be written with flaws and my storyline certainly would not be perfect. That was the beauty of my secret. I would have no one to judge me.

Three books later, a mound of support, love and encouragement, I sit here in the quiet moments – the sort of limbo of my book word – and I wait. A Promised Fate will be published on December 30^th.  The novel has gone out to a large handful of readers for their unbiased critiques and assessment of my writing skills and storytelling talents.  A fog of nervous energy surrounds me.  What if they don’t like it? What if I am a disappointment? What if my readers find out that I am not good enough? Esteem is such a fickle thing.

It is with this doubt in myself that I say, that I remind myself – who cares? 

The point is that I did it. This is my bucket list, not my life. In the end, I still did this just  for me. I will always be my hardest, meanest critic. I will beat myself up over the choice of one word in chapter four. I will wake myself up at night because I forgot to mention one last time how much Ari really does love Ava.  I know that in the weeks and months to come, my reviews will trickle in and every time a new review posts to my book an excited, scared buzz courses through my veins. This is a thrill. A painful, sort of pleasure ride – do they like me?

My goal was to write a book this year. I did it. I love it. I like me. The peace that I have given myself on a job well done is the satisfaction I wanted. Everything else is just words.