Happiness Is A Book Cover

In the midst of being buried in the administrivia of book promotion, sometimes it's easy to forget how we got here in the first place---what it felt like to see the very first cover for that book that took years to finish, submit, revise, finish again and again and again and finally get accepted. So, for today, I'm remembering that moment and a few others like it when other book covers popped out or poems and articles got published or a manuscript finished second in a small writing contest.

In a way, I suppose it's a little like being in a runner's slump and getting an unexpected and very welcom burst of encouragement. It could come from a short but really good run or even from just seeing photos of an ultra-marathon that you have long had on your bucket list but have temporarily lost the vision....

So, here's to those moments and the memories of them that keep us putting one foot in front of the other or tapping at the keyboard or scribbling on small notepads in the dark at 3:00 a.m. when a fresh and very perishable idea pops into our drowsy semi-consciousness.

Some days a little boost is all it takes.