Good News!

Well, sink me if it isn't time for a celebration! Tomorrow marks the release date of a book with one of our very own shipmate's names on the cover! Yes, Rachel Bayles be too modest to brag about it herself, so I'll do it for her. She spent many long months working on the illustrations for the book, Sensing Peace, by Suzana E. Yoder and published by Herald Press. And now, at last, publication day is upon us! WAY TO GO, RACHEL!

We're hoping this is only the first of many such happy announcements here at Scribblers Cove. If any of you get some good news of your own, then you better be sharin' it with yer crew. But for now, lets break out a keg o' me best lemonade and call the cabin girl to tune her ukulele and strike up a hornpipe!

And here's Rachel to tell you all about how it feels to hold the comp copy in her hands:

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Wow, what an introduction! Well, I would like to say I'm thrilled to death to see the finished product, but frankly I'm quite nervous. I thumb through my illustrations and a flood of memories comes back--I whipped this book out in the concluding 2 1/2 months of my pregnancy, which in my opinion was really not enough time nor the ideal circumstances to do what I really wanted to. As I was telling my husband about my insecure feelings on the release of my book, he immediately stopped me by saying, "Rachel you will NEVER produce something you will be thoroughly proud of. You will always have something you don't like--the way the colors turned out, the way you painted a face, you will always have SOMETHING you don't like. But you have to just let it be what it is! Just let it be!" (He's an artist, too, in his own right, so he can say things like that to me). I was a little taken aback, and the tears started to crest. I was troubled at the thought of never creating something as good as how I envisioned, but I think I was missing his point. I think he had just gotten tired of hearing me nit-pick my work. Where was the joy? If I didn't have any joy in what I do, why am I doing it? What is so horrible about having room to grow?

Well, I'm not sure this speech is exactly what Rebecca wanted, but maybe someone out there will read this and nod their head and say, yeah, I feel that way, too, sometimes, and I need to remember the joy! So for what it's worth, yes, my book comes out tomorrow, and no, it's not perfect, but it's mine. And it was a joy in many ways. I'm going to try hard to remember that when I think of hundreds of total strangers out there picking up a copy and thumbing through the pages.

Remember the joy!