See this? This was a dead tree I saw walking in the woods today. I had to stop and take a picture, breaking myself out of my normal routine of walking and talking and listening and thinking because I wanted to capture the look of this because it hit me as meaningful to where I am right now.
INDELIBLE is coming. It is my second "first book" (first in a new series, a new publisher, a new editor, a new niche of the market) and is very much what feels like a second chance. Some people know me by my debut book and many don't know me at all. This is my chance to show that I can tell stories, different stories with different characters and creatures and challenges and strange, new worlds but still maintain my "voice"--that elusive quality that defines us as writers and see what the wide world thinks about that. It is pushing through the old to create something new.
When I first thought that this reflected something about my publishing journey, I thought about sloughing off the old and forcing my way up into the light again after being so long in the dark. But that's not true. Like these beautiful little green tendrils that are clinging to the side of the dessicated bark and pushing out tiny newly-spring leaves, I am feeding off what I learned the first time out, using what I know and who I met to anchor and support me as I push forward, creating something tremulous and richer and altogether different, but having been sheltered by the first time, I now can be stronger, more flexible, more resilient and daring--I *had* to have this foundation in order to grow. And this time it's different. It is in many ways, this story is deeper and truer, helped by friends who support it and me, and having new eyes shining down upon it with light and tears and good hopes as it's ready to bloom. (Note the cover art!) Really, that's more what this is like: a moment of two steps on the journey into the sun.
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among stars!" – Les Brown
...or, you never know, you might even grow a tree!