Galley!

It arrived.  No.  They arrived.  Six galleys in my living room.  Wow, that suddenly sounded very Pirandello-esque six books come looking for the author.  They arrived just as I was running out the door to go down to Hanalei to meet a friend.  I grabbed one and ran out the door.

In Hanalei I met up with my friend David.  David has just finished writing his book and starting the dreaded agent search.  We sat in the last of the evening sun and then wandered over to Java Kai where we bumped into two other friends sitting at a table on the veranda.  One of them, Cris, is an established author and the other, Mark, a musician and rapacious reader.  Both were super helpful when I was writing Exit the Actress.  I took Nell out of my bag and she went out for her first walk in the wide world.  They were delighted.  They were thrilled.  Suddenly it had all happened.  Exit the Actress was no longer in the remote 'what if' of someday but it was that day, a Friday afternoon in Hanalei.  

Tina, another friend, is a voracious reader and owns Java Kai.  Recognizing immediately what was going on, she came over and joined us.  Then we were five: three writers and two readers.  Just then I heard my name called and my wonderful, recently graduated, about to go off to college student Wyatt and his wonderful, already in college, brother Max appeared on the veranda.  It was one of those Sesame Street summer evenings where everyone stops by Gordon and Susan's porch.  Now we were readers and writers and students.  The conversation flowed around words expressed on a page.  Unusual on such a small, remote island.  The how of it, the surprise of it, the trickiness of it, the rhythm of it, the home of it, the who of it.

Group endeavor.  It is so much more rewarding than solo endeavor.  Sounds like the name of a space shuttle.  This blog, where you have all been so supportive and kind, the world I where I studied and researched where everyone encouraged me to risk it and write, the happy communicative world where I concentrated and wrote: I have been so lucky to keep bumping into this conversation that flows around words.