Celebrating 12 Years in Print:

For Marita Golden, Marie Brown, Judy Sapp, Matthew Miller and Christine Wilkinson, who all believed even when I didn't.

It has been a long time habit of mine to wake up at 4 a.m. to write.

This morning I woke up to play "catch up" with my classes at the university.

In the shower, I bemoaned the fact that since the beginning of the semester I had spent little to no time dedicated to the final edit passes on  a book that I have been working on for several years. These spells of nonwriting always spiral me into the  Am-I-A-Real-Writer? place. It's a dark place that makes me fatter and dreary and mean.

The water was spraying, I was trying desperately to at least write a poem in my head so that my writerly lust had been satisfied for the day.

Nothing.

Then I thought about my first book Blackberries, Blackberries.

Twelve years? Really?

Yes! I have been in print for 12 years so that is something to celebrate.

What made me think of it in the first place?

Today is the final day that you can get this first work of mine for $1.99 through Amazon's Top 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or less chosen by the editors of AmazonEncore for January. I meant to do a bit of self promotion earlier in the month but life got in the way. So there! Twelve years (whoo-hoo). Buy the Kindle version for $1.99 (whoo-hoo). I feel slightly better like a teeny tiny baby step toward feeling better. But I will embrace it before that witch on my other shoulder throws back her head, laughs and says "So what heifer it's been ten years...." Blah. Blah. Blah.She's queen of the dark Am-I-A-Real-Writer place (cave).

Now off to campus and maybe I can squeeze in some time to get these edits done and keep the woman who lives in the cave who rears her head to mock me in the shadows