the sparrow song

Having already read the story through rewrites and edits and mostly having lived the story one too many times, I chose the first hours of the next few days delivering and mailing gift signed copies to a select few. During this window from delivery to formal copyright date, I returned to my prepublication list and materials created for promotion that I had written waiting her arrival. Narrowing my niche,uncertain this being “the first” what my niche was, I selected a couple dozen reviewers. Heart open, I sent them on their path.

The transition from the withdrawn, quiet life of an author to the active, competitive-driven world of the publisher took energy and adjustment time. I had preplanned. I had pre-selected. I had created promo materials before I ever felt Dear Daisy in my hands. Transition from author to publisher, first steps had been taken.

Content I had done all that could be done in these first hours, proud and at peace,I sat down to breathe, book in hand, and cracked the cover of Dear Daisy with the intent to read the story I had written.
An author, first book…heart open to explore what pages had transformed to become, now bound between hardcover. Discovery, exploration, touching land…all of this I felt…


Still…Life does not stop for this. Life has a way of not allowing itself to be edited out. I can’t tell you what page I was on when the phone rang. I can tell you not more than one-third way through I learned that where the author ends a book is often times not where the story chooses to end. A sparrow, one close to my heart, too overcome and challenged by this world, had fallen to the ground. Disbelief how life had written this epilogue chapter...days later I returned and continued to read the story I had written sensing this sparrow reading by my side. The author’s copy of Dear Daisy will forever hold my tears.