Holding the book in my hand.

It's an odd thing to hold something in my hands that was once just a figment of my imagination.

Any aspiring novelist who sets about putting words on paper (or LCD screen), dreams of one day seeing their story in print. A story starts as nothing more than a vague idea that rattles around in your head for several months before turning into an outline, eventually gets fleshed out in full length on your computer screen. Then if you're fortunate enough to get a publisher interested in it, a small army of editors, artists, marketers, publicists and sales reps gets involved. And after all the editing, all the artwork, the planning, the marketing and printing, you hold in your hands a finished product! The materialization of an idea.

Forgive my self-indulgence, it's just that I have dreamed of getting a book published since I was a kid and to actually have that come to fruition is just a bit of a thrill. It's hard to get my head wrapped around the idea.

But anyway, now it's on to the next story....