Dancing Naked on the Porch

This is obviously my year for dreams fulfilled. Shortly after posting about my big fun as a backup singer for the talented musician I live with, something else huge happened. I got published.

I didn't have time to think about it much. One day, I was writing emails back and forth with a new publisher called Hen House Press...the next day a collection of my short stories was available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.

The View From Outside

My initial reaction was elation that reminded me of the incredulous, happy shock that followed the arrival of both of my children. There's no gorgeous, warm little person to snuggle, but there is a sense of having helped bring something new into the world.

Things have gotten a little weird since then.

In my initial excitement, I told a lot of people. I told people at work, including my bosses. They were thrilled for me. They're nice folks. I told my FB "friends" and sent out a "Hey! Guess what I did!" email to fifty of my closest friends." I didn't expect anyone to buy one but the sales started.

I went to NYC on a business trip and one of my bosses announced to the high-powered business owners at an evening meeting that I'd written a book that was now published. Three people came up to ask me to repeat the name.

And the weirdness grew.

Cousins I don't know anymore passed the word around the family that "Suzie" had written a book.

And it got totally weird. Because what I realized is every single damned thing I've written has some relationship to my view of reality, and I have just laid that bare for the world to see. Nothing's fact, some is complete fiction, but some characters certainly resemble people who could be recognized by relatives and that's a bit awkward.

It's weird that strangers are reading it, too, as I tend to guard my deepest feelings but in a book they flood the pages. It's painfully revealing.

So now I find myself with the strange feeling of dancing on the front porch, totally naked and feeling completely free, while hoping no one passing by on the street notices what I'm doing.

Who knew that this would be my honest answer when someone says, "You're published! How does it feel!"..........Conflicted.