Gifts

Finally.
I used to be appalled at how long authors said it took to get a book from start to finish. Now I know myself to be lucky that it only took a little less than a year. Thanks, A.F., for going over and over and over and over it, until it was done.

And now, while I sit here and think, "What now!?" a word from Our Jane:

A writer has many successes:

Each new word captured.
Each completed sentence.
Each rounded paragraph leading into the next.
Each idea that sustains and then develops.
Each character who, like a wayward adolescent, leaves home and finds a life.
Each new metaphor that, like the exact error it is, some how works.
Each new book that ends--and so begins.

Selling the piece is only an exclamation point, a spot of punctuation.

© 2000 by Jane Yolen