shouting

if you know me well, you know that I need to write. it's part of what I'm meant to do here on earth, and I can't shake it off. I've tried: I've worked in retail, I've earned a MSW and been a counselor, I've owned a business in the wholesale industry, I've raised children . . . and through it all, something has continued to pull me to notepaper and pens, word processors, laptops, keyboards, pencils, scraps of paper. I cannot walk away from this.
so I keep writing, accepting little projects that occasionally come my way, creating my own new projects, starting this blog, beginning another project when the spirit moves me, and 15 months ago, finally saying "yes" to a big project that came my way.
that big project was a book that someone hired me to write.
completed last winter, we spent months trying to solicit an agent, then finally sent the manuscript directly to a publisher in june.

and this past monday I received an email from someone at the publishing company telling me that the first reviewer of my manuscript didn't want to put it down, and now it was in the hands of a second reviewer.

didn't want to put it down.

didn't want to put it down.

didn't want to put it down!!!

I had planned that day to be a day off the bike, a full recovery day for me. but late in the afternoon my quads were aching and that thing inside me that tells me to do things told me to go for a ride.
by the time I got out it was evening, and I grinned all the way up to the top of emigration. sunlight was fading fast, but I had to ride down to the reservoir, I had to share my good news with my favorite body of water.
all the intelligent cyclists had by then headed home, as the sun sunk low in the sky and shadows grew thick and voluminous.
and I rode down to the reservoir, shouting, as I swooped, they didn't want to put it down!
the water heard me, it swallowed my words, it pushed them to its shores, it echoed them back to me. they didn't want to put it down.

I was one of those unsafe riders on my way home, taillight blinking but lightless in front, shocking motorists with my sudden presence, scaring myself with my next-to-nothing vision.
but I had to shout. I had to sing it out, I had to share it with my world.

didn't want to put it down.

stay tuned . . .