Seeing My Story Come to Life

I was born shortly after midnight. Once on my birthday, my mom told me she wasn’t the least bit surprised by my arrival time into this world.

I looked at her, confused, and she smiled, saying she always believed I’m the kind of person who wanted to soak up every minute of that day.

I really love that idea – and I’ve shaped it recently into a personal philosophy that guides how I live, especially during this wonderful #AuthorJourney.

I don’t want to take any moment of this for granted. I want to feel the emotions and remember the steps that took me #FromDraftToDream because you only get to publish your first book once.

It’s exciting and doesn’t even remotely feel like work. Sometimes I catch myself feeling a little selfish for carving out a little time for myself to do this. But I also know how deeply grateful I am.

I’ve been compiling lists of local bookstores and libraries to connect with, and I had a fantastic dinner meeting recently with a longtime friend and mentor about featuring my book at an event next year.

But over the weekend, it all started to feel very real. My illustrator, Robin, sent me art specs with the text laid out on each page to review. I’ll admit – I honestly didn’t know what art specs were until now.

The printed-out version of my book with art specs!

For those of you who don’t, art specs are descriptions of proposed illustrations. In other words, they’re the words Robin used to describe the art she envisions to bring my story to life on each page.

And I got to review it – making sure it was shaping up to the vision I always had for it.

Robin recommended I print it out – to really get the feel for what it will soon become – and jot down my notes. So, I grabbed a pencil and got to “work."

I immersed myself once again in the words – hers and mine – and thought about how to create a truly joyful experience for readers with each turn of the page of charming story. I imagined my children sitting down to read my book that I started when they were so very young.

So, with my pencil, I added fun Easter eggs for Robin to include in the illustrations – little surprises they could discover within its pages.

This exercise – of including myself in a book that already holds so much of me and reviewing the illustrations that will bring it to life – was a beautiful gift.

And you better believe it’s one that I will treasure always.

As I’ve said before, I’m absolutely soaking up every bit of this journey. There aren’t milestones every day, and that’s OK. That’s real life. But this dream is also real – and it’s coming true.