A Week in the Life

Some weeks go by in a routine blur without a single notable occurrence.  Five nights at work, two days off to recuperate, and then round the bend to more of the same.  Hours at the computer that raise the word and page counts but barely keep up with the story percolating in my brain.  Calendar days marked off, just so I can remind myself of today's date.

Not this past week!  In case you missed it, I had a week to remember!

It started off on Monday with this.  http://www.lilybearhouse.com/2013/06/big-announcements.html,
the announcement of my signing with LilyBear House.  I have a publisher!  I'm no longer alone on this journey.  I have a team of wonderfully creative and supportive folks traveling with me now.  I frankly never saw this one coming.  It popped up out of the blue, thanks to a serendipitous FB friendship and a nudge from God reminding me that we are never really alone. 

On Thursday, I had a double dose of excitement.  I took part in a FB "likefest" with hundreds of other like-minded people.  As a result, I now have 125 new connections on my fan page.  Writers, illustrators, editors and collectives who are filling my newsfeed with exciting and provocative posts.  I'm spending way too much time on FB right now just soaking it all in!

In the midst of that, on Thursday morning I hauled myself out of bed earlier than usual to "put myself together" in advance of the dreaded photo shoot.  If I'm going to be a real published author, I should have a real professional headshot on my new covers, right?  Ugh!  I wish I could use a picture from 1970 and pretend that's what I still look like.  But no, I'm going to put my current face out there for the world to see, sags, bags and all!

Thanks to a very skilled photographer who understood how self-conscious I was feeling, the shoot was painless, almost fun, and the results were surprisingly okay.  Any woman my age is lying if she says really likes the way she looks to the camera, even in the best pose and focus, but I didn't cringe (maybe just a little, right at first) and I immediately put my two favorites up for my FB friends to see.  My face is now all over the place, and shockingly, I'm feeling pretty good about that.  We all get older, we all change, and I suspect when we look in the mirror, we all wonder how that happened so quickly.  The woman in this picture looks like someone I wouldn't mind sitting down to coffee with or even introducing to my readers.  I hope they'll see a love of living in her eyes, and the humor lurking behind those laugh lines, someone who hopes they get as much pleasure from reading her words as she got from putting them on paper. 

And now on to another week.  After this one, I think a little routine blur might be okay.