It was hot. I drove home from work, ran into my house, and set the slow cooker to keep warm instead of auto. My parents-in-law and sis-in-law were coming around for dinner, and I didn’t want my pulled pork to get dry. I checked the mailbox and saw we’d been left a parcel. I’d pick it up on my way to pick up my children from kindy.

I knew it was coming. The first pages of my novel. So as I exited the post office with the rather large, A4-sized package under my arm, it was with a big grin on my face. I sat back in my car, turned on the air-conditioner, and looked at this package. Addressed to me.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of looking at your own words, typeset and lovingly etched into professional looking (and feeling – it’s bible-thin!) paper. I have never been so proud of something in my life. There’s ten years worth of blood and sweat and rejection in that thing.

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I feel really good about this.