One step closer...

For months, I feel like I've been toiling up a mountain in a fog. Low cloud, maybe. It's always uphill, and I've kept pushing, but the signposts have kept me going. Mslexia runner up, that was a big one. Getting an agent, definitely encouraging. Keep going, keep going. But the last three months has been frustrating. It felt steeper, and the end was nowhere in sight, and I began to lose heart. Then...the sun came out. It turns out I was almost at the top of the mountain. My agent phoned to say that a publisher was putting an offer together. Now, I don't want to say too much, or jinx it in any way, so I can't say more than next week sometime, I will have an offer for my book, which is a hand up to the last bit of that mountain. So I do feel fantastic and wrecked all at the same time. part of me just wants to lie down and cry as I look back over the last years of working and hoping and writing some more. The other part wants my book deal, and to run down the other side. I realise ahead lies more mountains, but the first one is the biggest. So, if you are toiling up your own mountain in the fog, relish the encouragement you get, keep on working, and you will get to the top of your mountain.

Now I'm going for a long, hot soak in the bath to recover. Then possibly, to bed early. Climbing's hard work.