It is my 5 Year Anniversary!! #Author

My First Book Cover

Five years ago today, I stared at Amazon and had no clue what to expect. Sapphire Blue Publishing contracted my book and just making it that far boggled my mind. To think, people might that day be reading my words? Meeting Janie and Chance? It was more than I'd ever really dared to dream.

In an excerpt of the blog I wrote the day before that release, I said the following deep and meaningful stuff. *clears throat*

"Tomorrow is the big day and Odd Stuff will be out for your reading pleasure. Finally you can all join Janie on her great first adventure...*evil grin* *happy dance* In other, non-literary news... things with the kids are on the upswing. The chaotic events of last week (which could not possibly have had a worse drop date timeline wise) have ironed themselves out (okay, I ironed them out with a bus and a shovel and other heavy work... but we can make it sound easy on paper!) and hopefully we will see things getting better for the shortest member of the family. If not, he will be grounded until graduation. One or the other. Either will work.

Some man just swam through a wheat field on a Subway commercial on TV. One would think that would chafe. Just sayin.

We had the biweekly meeting of the writers group on Saturday Night. I think our name is M.U.S.E. but I don't remember what the acronym stood for. I was kind of punch drunk tired at that point and they were plying me with wine. Okay, I can't blame it on the wine, but it was worth a shot. I liked the wine. I had no sleep going into that meeting and I was doing the galley on Odd that night as well as the meeting so bits are blurry. Like what our name means. But I remember I liked it."

Back then, I wrote on Bluey. And she is STILL HERE.

As you can see, my reputation for thought-provoking writing is...still a lot like when I started.

Since then, I've published a plethora of stories with a variety of publishers, but in a few short days...I'm celebrating the release of another Odd Story and Jeanie and Chance will ride again. Life is funny. If you told me five years ago that everything would be okay, that there would be more books, that one day I'd look back on that one and be amused at myself?

I wouldn't have believed it. Thanks so much for being on this bumpy and crazy journey with me. Thanks to those of you who have been there since that first book, thanks to those just joining me at this point in the ride. And here's to another fabulous five years to come!