This morning an event took place that I have imagined many times during my life. All right, I always pictured tearing open an envelope as opposed to clicking open an email, but aside from that little detail . . .
I opened the message. It read: "I had to force myself to put your book down last night so I could get some sleep."
As a reader, I'm very familiar with the bleary-eyed moment when I close the book I've just finished, blink at the gray light pressed against the windows, and realize that I've read an entire book in a single night. As a writer, I've spent many nights hunched over the keyboard while my characters whispered or shouted in my ear and I tried to keep pace with what they had to share with me. But this is the first time my words kept another human being awake because the reader just had to know what happened next.
Last week when I learned that Love is the Thread was already available on Kindle, with the trade paperback soon to follow, I felt thrilled. At last, years of work had resulted in a book in readers' hands, in their minds. And on Monday morning when I opened the email, I felt more than thrilled. I felt the joy that my words had passed through a reader's eyes and mind and into her heart.