I close my eyes and type
Creative Energy
Alive and free

Marketing makes me feel
Incompetent and queasy
Strange dichotomy

Books need two breaths of life
Author's inspiration
Readers' validation

As I launch my new book, I feel myself cowering at the prospect of trying to make it known to people. I keep coming back to some words penned by Robert Service, the poet of the Yukon gold rush:

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
   It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
   So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
   It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
   It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Whether you write a poem, a blog, or a book, you know the mysterious magic that comes when you feel you’ve really captured something in your heart or a wonderful idea comes to you out of the unconscious. I tell myself that these magic moments of discovery are really what it’s all about, but I know that there is equally powerful magic in finding some part of yourself in the words of others, or having someone else find resonance in one’s own words. So I hope my book will find some friends in this big scary world of ours.

Ophelia and the Golden Horse is available for free on Amazon through February 13th.