Overwhelmed

I feel the need to ramble tonight, so bear with me.

A wee bit of history: I've been writing romance for five years now. It took two years to complete the first manuscript, but when it was done, I decided that I needed to start thinking about getting my work published. So - I began the long journey. Submit, rejected, submit, rejected, submit, . . . . You get the picture. But that was okay because as I was getting rejected, my writing was getting better. I hope it's still getting better. But -- what was my ultimate goal?

My first goal was to be published before my kids hit college so that this second career might help with those college expenses I'm dreading. When I realized this might not happen, my second goal was to publish before retirement so that I would be well-established as an author by the time I retired from teaching. I'm too restless to just sit around the house, so I thought - what better way to spend my off hours than to write what I love.

So where am I? Overwhelmed. I was very excited to accept my first contract with Champagne Books. And Celestial Dragon has far exceeded my expectations. It's gotten great reviews. It's now a best seller for Champagne and it's the Publisher's pic for June. All very exciting which of course has led to Champagne deciding to put it into print, release TBA.

Prior to all of this, in my infinite wisdom, I realized when I got my contract that I was going to have to wait a year and a half for Celestial Dragon to be released, so of course, I'm thinking I need to line up some other books. I have four more books contracted with Champagne. Sarah's Brass Token comes out in December. And the other three all come out in 2007. Whaaaa. When am I going to have time to promote, write more and teach? Overwhelmed. Of course not. When Celestial Dragon does go to print, I'll have to figure out a way to send off promotional packets to bookstores and promote Sarah's Brass Token and start school all at the same time. But hey - I'm super woman. This is all doable. Really.

Goals? My new goal is to survive being published and remain sane when deadlines start piling on top of one another. That's a reasonable goal.

Would I change anything? Absolutely not. While I'm overwhelmed, I'm also happy. I'm doing something I truly love. What more could I want out of life?

Ciara