About to be Published.

It hasn't really sunk into my brain yet and still feels like any other business transaction I make on a daily basis, but it's not the same. My heart and head are not on the same page... yet.

I'm about to be published. Sure, it's not like I had pictured it in the beginning, but it is a part of the dream that I've had for a long time. But, it was always something that was just beyond grasp, just at the end of the fingertips, but not something that I could wrap my fingers around. Most of it having been my fault, because offers have come but I didn't take them.

Why now? What's different this time? I don't know. I just know that it is. I will soon be able to hold in my hands a printed, published copy of a story from my dreams. My name will be splashed across the front and my picture placed on the back. Within the covers, small printed letters will dance upon the pages as they tell a story that swirled within the ocean of my imagination. Life breathing into the characters as their personalities become known to those who dare to read.

Part of me wants to hold them close to my bosom and protect them from others, but then another part wants to share them with the world. Will they love them as I have? Will they see them as I do? I guess I'm about to find out.

Thank you, everyone, who has supported this dream. I wasn't alone in making it come true and I won't be alone when it soars through the universe or when the next dream decides to take flight.

As my title says up at the top... hang on... it's going to be a bumpy ride. Boy, what a great ride, though!

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Becoming an Author

When I introduce myself as an author, I meet lots of people who say, "Oh, I've tried to write a book once, but never finished it." That one fact is the biggest obstacle that makes someone an author. But, it's only the beginning.

You are a writer if you write, then edit, then re-write, then contemplate, then edit some more and then re-write again. You are an author when you submit, query, wait, wait, submit again, query again, wait and wait some more and then the writing gets published.

Until that time... you're just someone who had an idea and didn't follow through with it because either you didn't have the drive, determination or discipline required; and believe me - it takes all three.

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Who Really Does the Writing?

I've had many people ask me, "How do you come up with all those stories?" Most of the time my response is usually something profound as "life is a story, I just choose to write one down." But even I wonder where the thoughts of my imagination begin.

I have no doubt that God is the true author of all life and this ability to see bits of it all around me is a gift given. I find it quite amazing when I discover that not everybody can see the same way. A painter can see the true beauty of color and depth perception more vibrantly; a musician and singer hear the sounds of the world and the soul much clearer; writers and poets see the power of life and death that are encased with the spoken and written language. Yet, we all only see the true picture around us in part and we are vain enough to think we understand everything because of what little we've seen, heard, smelled, felt and tasted.

I can only write what I know and can imagine. My imagination is limited yet without bounds, and my knowledge is constantly growing but has limitations. Yet who truly has the power of creation. The definition alone disqualifies me, because I do not have the power to make something from nothing. I am a master of manipulation, because I have an uncanny gift to take elements of what already is and manipulate them into something else. I can take bits and pieces of the story (world) I know, have known and have experienced and mold those experiences into a new story, just as a painter takes the colors that already exist and make them into a picture of manipulated bits and pieces of a world they've come to know. But I do not "create" anything from nothing. I make something new from what already exists.

So who really does do the writing? I do. Writing is a gift. While many people may know much of the same as I do, not everybody can write it down in the same way. I am a scribe, and my gift comes with much discipline and skill. It's not always easy and requires much dedication, but how it makes my soul churn within me and stirs the passion inside, I cannot fathom doing anything else.

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray