Day 100 ~ Completion

This will be my last paragraph, my last "brushstroke." It took some perseverance to write one hundred, and more so, to write one per day, not skipping any days. But this wasn't as big a commitment as when I wrote the book. Doing that at a time when I needed to care for a toddler required a lot of determination. I was lucky to find a great daycare to leave my son two mornings a week. I had visited another one and I had a list of three others to evaluate, but once I met the owner of the second one, I looked no more. Not only did we connect in that we both had suffered in ways most people around us don't, but I also immediately noticed how she could really listen, give me her undivided attention. I was sure this was the one place where I could leave my son. A few weeks after we met, she offered to keep him an extra hour or two free of charge on days where she didn't have many children. Invaluable. I would write and write, some days producing one thousand words. It took me four years to come up with a first full draft. Granted, it was a long manuscript (800 pages). I revised my work for three months and then handed it to a professional editor. Like with the daycare, I interviewed several but I knew from the beginning who would be "the one." I needed someone with a special sensitivity for my project, and only she had it. She took about five weeks to do her work. I spent almost a whole year going over all her comments, to polish, to refine, to give shape, to find titles and quotes. After that, I asked her for a last pass, which took her nine months (setback from a difficult personal situation). The last month was formatting for me. All in all, the book was a six-year commitment. Mission accomplished. Both then and now.