Kidsillio

I Did It!!!

I have some SUPER EXCITING NEWS!!

But first, please bear with me while I back up a bit. When I sat down to write this post for my website because I finally had something AWESOME to share, I saw how long it had been since I’d posted anything, and I wondered what had been holding me back. Browsing my website, I clicked on the About section. I realized that I have been avoiding my website because this section needed updated. And updating this section would sadden my heart. A lot.

I still live in central Illinois with my husband. Yay!! My daughter has graduated from college and lives less than an hour away. This part has been an adjustment but not that sad, since, thank God, she stayed close enough so she could still come home on Sundays. The free washer and dryer here may have something to do with this, but that’s fine with me. I’ll take her visits however I can get them!

That’s all good stuff, but changing the part about my best friends, Lucy and Harley (our dogs), is what I have been avoiding. Because after an accumulation of almost 35 years of unconditional love and laugh out loud entertainment, they have both passed on. I’m not going to lie; each loss took many months before a day passed without me crying. When friends or family who I have in my address book pass away, I can’t bring myself to erase or cross out their names. They are all still there. So, you can imagine how I have avoided updating my About page.

Now for my news!

I have posted before about my writing, my submitting, and my rejection. I started writing my first novel at least 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve completed another novel and several picture books. The first novel has been constantly re-written, as I’ve received feedback from other writers and gained skills from writing workshops and articles. It has been submitted to publishers and agents throughout the process and received TONS of rejection forms. But it also received some personal rejections with encouraging notes, and once it even made it to the acquisitions team before getting … you guessed it…rejected.

I’ve spent this past year doing a major re-write after finally investing in a freelance developmental fiction editor, Bev Rosenbaum, and then asking my cousin, Teresa, to use her mad editing skills to read my revisions and offer suggestions for improvement. I loved the new version, and I looked forward to sending it out on submission again. But this meant starting over the agonizing research for editors and agents and then waiting forever for a response, so I kept putting it off.

Then…an editor friend, who had worked on this story with me before, decided to expand her editing business of thirteen years and begin publishing books. She emailed me that she might like to publish my book, if I was interested. Was I interested? Was she kidding? OF COURSE, I WAS!

God is SO GOOD!

Below is a picture of me signing my very first book contract with Editor-911 Books – Publisher and Editor, Margo Dill. My middle-grade novel, Only My Horses Know, will be available on Amazon between middle December to early January! I am SO excited!!!

This book is about acceptance; accepting change – accepting lack of control – accepting differences – accepting judgement – and then, letting go of it all and accepting God’s help.

You can read more about it on page 2 of my editor’s blog. (I have an editor!)

I need to go and get busy because I will also be creating the book cover with my cut-paper design. Can you hear me celebrating? Finally!!! Yippeeeee!!! Whoohooooo!!!