Miracles Still Happen

The book has gone to print. It feel like sending a child off to grow up and become a person. Books, like children reflect thier author-parents. They can embarrass you half to death, give you some pleasure, do things you are proud of, or make you wish you didn't have your name written all over them.

It is a scary thing, this book thing. Writing to market would send me right over the edge. Vanity press is very safe. Expensive, but safe.

What I have done for for nine months is gestation. Have I given birth to a beauty or a beast? I have prayed to God every day before starting that I can give honor to my heritage; and to the people and place I try to put into print. I pray that I can stay awake, that my computer keeps working and that I can endure the pain. The stuff of consequence.

Iit is a miracle. It is done. He Who Must Be Obeyed has read proof pages, made good suggestions, a dozen phone calls, cooked for and fed me, and put me to bed. Even though I resisted a lot of it, and called it "loud, pushy behavior," and I made noises back; I couldn't have finished without it.

This morning I woke up, too early, to hear him talking on the phone about school sections determined by the Homestead Act. My source was correct. That is what I mean about the baby. When you are footnoting names like Mykkanen, with an umlaut, you can't rely on your spell checker.

Like babies, books are miracles.