Publishing my novel was the completion of this story’s long journey. It had taken decades to convert a screenplay to a 464-page book, and then a good amount of time to decide to self-publish instead of continuing to chase a traditional publishing deal. I just kept saying, “It was important to just get it done” but really didn’t think beyond that. It was a very special day in December when the first print version arrived while I was visiting my mother in Texas. During the pandemic my husband and I periodically sent my mom a box of books, since she is an avid reader and due to her age was unable to be out much and ran through her thrift store inventory pretty quickly - so that’s how we decided to announce the publishing of my book. She knew I had been working on completing and publishing it, with my son designing the cover and helping with all the layout issues, but I hadn’t told her it was in fact done and to the printers. She opened the new box of books enthusiastically wondering what books Kip had sent her, pulling out the first few reading the titles and talking about them and then she stopped, “wait Millie Flowers?” My mom knows Millie and had been an early reader of the manuscript. She read my novel over the next few days and sat it prominently on the coffee table for the few people that came over for masked and socially distanced visits.

OK, now I need to figure out how to go from here. As I’ve shared with friends its nerve-racking having the story now out in the world. People reading the words that I’ve written, getting to know characters I’ve developed. I’m not sure I will ever be comfortable with that reality - but am pretty confident that my dear friends of several decades, Grover and Millie will see me through.