Last night, my daughter got to share a bit of my world--and bask in the limelight for a little while. We had our first book signing for our horror young adult novel, THE WELL, at a local bookstore, and she got to do all the signing, something she's been dying to do since the book became a reality. We had a blast, and it was neat to see her having so much fun.

We hadn't even received our author copies yet (some mix-up with the warehouse) so yesterday was the first time we got to see and hold the real honest-to-goodness book. For me, it was neat to see the look on my daughter's face when she paged to the bio and saw her name in print. To see her turn the book over and over in her hand, and look at this thing we created together.

Then when people started coming to the signing, and congratulating her, or asking her questions, that was neat to watch too. She was shy, and quiet about it, but I could see the smile on her face. I don't think she quite gets what a huge deal this is, or how unusual it is for an almost-sixteen-year-old to have a published book under her belt.

This weekend, we'll be finishing up book #2 (it's due on Tuesday. Eek!) and then thinking about what we'll do next. She and I are also going to start doing some blogs together for the promotion of THE WELL as the weeks go on, and it'll be fun to teach her about the ins and outs of that aspect of book publishing.

The next stop on this journey for her will be seeing the book in stores. I can already imagine her face when she stops in a bookstore, anywhere in the country, and sees the book she helped create right there on shelves. It'll be a moment I'm sure she won't forget :-)

Shirley