As of yesterday, January 19, 2010, I experienced a dream come true, a dream I've dreamt since I was in fourth grade. I received the galley of my first novel. For the first time in my life I held in my hand the very first copy of my very first novel -- ever.

I expected something different since I'd dreamed it for so long, but what came over me was a calmness, an absolute peace. I'm not sure if having a dream of such magnitude arrive in the mail has sent me into shock or what. It feels like a calm knowingness, an utter peacefulness of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this has already happened and I'm now just catching up to what's been waiting for me.

I've spent today reading. It's a 261 page novel. I'm on page 99 and took a break to call a fellow writer in the Colorado mountains. And now I'm still taking a break while workers are up in the attic in my studio. (It's too distracting to concentrate.)

I'm reading to look for errors. I'm checking for anything that's not to my liking, and here's what I've discovered. Even though I've been editing, re-writing, and meticulously combing through this manuscript for years, I'd change a multitude of things even to this day. Because why? Because I'm different. Because I'm different I want my characters to respond differently, my wording to be joined differently, and my messages to be conveyed differently.

That's why it's taken so long to rewrite this. How do I know when it's finished? When I say I'm done. I'm feeling very done. I feel it's time to finish diapering this baby, pat it on its butt, and send it on its way. It's time for me to move on, to accomplish the next thing in my life I feel called to do. It's time for me to explore new venues, to speak before crowds, to design new images, and to create new worlds, not continue to rewrite the ones I've already been through.

So, that being said, it's time to get back to reading page 99 and the rest of its relatives. And the men are still crawling around the attic above me with the ladder pulled down behind my chair. I can proof anyway.

Because it's time to call this bad boy done. Ah...I feel the load lifting as I swivel my chair back around to the book. Soon, it will be available to the masses through Amazon. Its name is Healing Grace, and mine is Jill Luigs. And with a few clicks on the computer the book could be in your hands too.

So, let me finish reading...