Another Baby Step

Paper, scissors, tape--voila! This miniature comp was part of today's baby step towards becoming a published author.

I spoke to The Muse on the phone again this morning.  Well actually, I spoke with Bob Ostrom, the very talented and personable man who is illustrating my first children’s book.  Now that Bob’s completed all thirteen sketches, he and I discussed our respective feelings on colors.

First children’s book?  Feelings on colors?!  Yes, I’ve died and gone to heaven.  Evidently heaven feels a lot like Kindergarten.  Even so, I wouldn’t have stepped foot into this classroom if not for my fellow Chick, Eva.  She literally pushed me into it.  After enduring years of my incoherent ramblings about IT (the would-be novel), it was Eva who made me enter the Nature Made Sleep Bedtime Stories Contest and became my biggest e-promoter as well.  Then came the thousands of votes for “Addie and Ollie” from my amazing friends and friendly supporters, for whom I remain most grateful and without whom I would not have won.

Winning has been a much-needed boost to my long-lost sense of worth.  The $7,500 prize money was my first “paycheck” since becoming a stay-at-home mom, a fact not unnoticed by my hard-working, left-brained husband.  Yet having my story brought to life by Lulu.com has been the greatest prize by far.  Collaborating with a professional illustrator is creatively exhilarating.  I feel validated as a (dare I type the word?) writer.

“It’s only a little poem,” the anti-muse inside my head would have me believe.  Maybe so.  But The Muse reminds me that every creative journey, whatever the scale, is made of baby steps.  We set one wobbly but hopeful foot in front of the other.  And eventually, we learn to walk.