One Glittery Star In A Constellation

It all felt meteoric. Or stratospheric. Or whatever it is when there is a whoosh of propulsion behind you and you think you are finally on the path to fulfill a great destiny. First, there was the call from the agent. Two months later, there was the call from the editor. Four months later, the manuscript was off to copy edits. My star was rising and it felt all glittery and singular.

And it was.

Sort of.

Except what really happened on September 16, 2014 was my debut novel EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN took its place among a whole constellation of books. It was not a solo star, glittering in the heavens.

On that same day, three other authors I knew well had their books published: Laurie Thompson’s Be A Changemaker, P.J. Hoover’s Tut: The Story Of My Immortal Life and Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun. I do not know how many other books were released that day.

My book’s arrival in this twinkly constellation was its destiny but it wasn’t alone in the heavens. Nor was I, as its attendant author, drifting solo like some celestial firefly.

What happened on September 16, 2014 was I became a part of a beautiful Milky Way of story tellers whose books are cradled by our readers late at night, reading page after page, resisting sleep until they can’t anymore. Then they dream and our stories leak into their dreams conjuring who knows what. Whatever it is, it wakes them. They aren’t afraid but they feel different inside. As if their cells had rearranged themselves a bit. They sit and look out the window, through the tree branches at the stars beyond. They wonder about their future, about what’s going to happen, about who they are going to be. There, in the quiet of the deep night, they make a wish.

I made such a wish once upon a time.

When that wish comes true and your book joins the constellation of stars you wished upon, it feels nothing short of miraculous. Meteoric, even.