The rest of the Story

I first got the idea for Veiled while reading the scriptures one morning. Yea... I know it sounds very churchy, but it's the truth, so...there.
I was in fact reading about pre-mortal life, something that us LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) people believe in.

I wondered what it was like, to be there in the Spirit World, waiting for our chance to live. I wondered how we might have felt at the thought of crossing the veil and forgetting all we knew. All our loved ones, all our knowledge, all about God and Heaven....

That's when I saw them. The two main characters standing before this great mass of whiteness (made that up, no one knows what the veil looks like). They were holding hands, they loved each other, they wanted to be together but they knew that as soon as they stepped through they would be born into this life and forget!
They were looking at each other for the last time, wracking their brains trying to figure out how they were going to remember...

From that moment on the story spilled out. It was like I had just turned on the faucet full blast, and I only had a teaspoon to fill my bucket. I immediately wrote the last chapter of my book by hand.

I set up a schedule for writing, because I have a life--a very full life, complete with three homeschooled children and a husband. I only wrote for two hours a day, at first during nap time. When that was done away with, and I grieved its loss, I started waking up two hours earlier--not an easy task for me.
When the story was done, I started learning about the publishing industry.

Fortunately for me, my great friend Naomi Delatorre--also a writer and a blogger (www.organicmotherhoodwithcoolwhip) and a homeschooler--patched me through a blogger friend of hers. Swatti had just recently been picked up by a publishing house www.TreasureLineBooks.com , and was kind enough to introduce me.

So that--my friends--is the rest of the story.

I skipped a lot of parts, like the many friends and family members who kindly read my manuscript and still are reading it, so it could be the best.
So thanks Mom, Naomi, Jen McG., Erin C., Allison B., Allison N., Lexi M., Brigitte H.(I hope you guys read my book for book club--I'll host!), both my brothers and the girls (Ally H., Isabelle M. and Stephanie W.) who participated in my target audience experiment. And of course to my hubby, who is my rudder,the one who steers me in the right direction and slows me down (in a good way).

There is parallel part to this story as well, but I'll save that for another entry.

Thank you! Thank you! for your warm congratulatroy facebook comments, they mean a lot to me! And thank you Linda Boulanger for picking me up!