Okay, so, as most folks know, I’ve been working for nearly a decade on a novel, Waking Dreams, which I’ve been pushing to finish. A local competition here in Portland gave me the impetus to actually set a deadline for myself (December 31, 2015) to not only finish my novel, but enter the world of self-published authors. I’ve been quite silent as I used all my spare waking moments to finalize, edit, revise, and get my novel formatted and ready. Then on December 27, 2015 (okay, and into the wee hours of December 28, 2015, when I noticed some issues with the cover, and spacing and font issues in the publication process), I hit the “submit” button and watched as my novel was submitted into the nether.

I’ll admit, I’ve been a little silent about the whole submission and publication because I’ve been  both feeling an incredible sense of relief and accomplishment, coupled with this horrible sense of impending doom. Like I’m walking around waiting for someone to write, “Holy crap, you WROTE that piece of drivel? WTF? You call that plot development?” Plus, telling folks that it’s actually out there, well, um, it’s kinda terrifying. Because, well, it’s out there. So everyone can see this very personal thing, this novel that I wrote that shows pieces of me, and has been a huge chunk of my life. But, for better or worse – it’s out there. And I can say, I’m relieved and happy. And SUPER excited to feel like I’m free to move on to the other novels that are waiting to get out without that constant nagging, “You didn’t finish me! Hello! Heelllllloooooo!”

If you’d like to take a peek, the book is available for free right now on SmashWords: Waking Dreams.

And, because I just had to share my graphic woes, here’s the first version of the cover that was created by the very artistically talented (*cough,  NOT, cough*) me:

Now, when I first came up with this image, it was all big and the font looked ominous and I was super chuffed that this non-visually artistic writer had managed to cobble together this graphic from an out-of-focus picture of trees I’d taken a few months ago. Then, I hit submit and saw how the image translated into the small icon on SmashWords, and was all, “Wait, what does that title say? I can’t tell? Maybe the mystery of the book title will grab folks’ attention?” The skeptical look on my husband’s face was all the motivation I needed to go back and tweak it to the less ominous, but more legible, graphic below:

Overall, I can say this – I feel great about it. For better or worse, my very first book is done. It’s been a wonderful (if bumpy at times) ride and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. If you want to learn more about the writing process and the book (you know, aside from reading the book) you can check out an interview with yours truly conducted by the ever-awesome and mind-blowingly sweet blogger, The Monster in Your Closet, here.

Thank you, everyone!