Happy Birthday BUTTER!!

sooooo.... it's release day.
officially.

i think i'm supposed to say something really profound on this day. but all i can think is:
eek! hee hee hee! wheeee! whoa. huh? wha?? really? wheeeee!

sometimes words fail me.
or i fail the words, to be more accurate.
i'm having a tough time putting them together in a meaningful way today.

i know i should write a long post thanking everyone who helped make BUTTER come to life, but it would read an awful lot like the acknowledgements in the back of the book.
which you can now read.
because it is published!
eek! hee hee hee! wheeee!

so let me say for now "ditto" to those acknowledgements and promise more thank yous to come. because what i really want to do today is say something to all of the writers out there still dreaming of publishing.

Dear Writer,

every single day you put words down on paper to tell a story is a miracle. every rejection you shrug off in order to keep writing is a triumph. every writing rule you break in order to tell the story you want to tell is an achievement. every friend you make along this bumpy path to publishing is a gift. and every moment that you get swept away by your own words - writing for the pure joy of it - is priceless.

publishing is not the promised land. your imagination is. you have the gift to create your own worlds to escape to whenever you wish. and if your dream is to share those worlds with readers, then all you have to do is keep writing. authors come up from the slush pile all the time. i should know. i'm one of them. i can't tell you how to get published, because every writer's path is different. but i can tell you there's only one way to 100% guarantee you will not get published - and that's to stop writing.
so keep getting up every day and putting words down on paper.
one day those words will come to life inside of a book.

i didn't fully believe it myself until today.
whoa. huh? wha?? really? wheeeee!