Sadness and Gladness - The Life and Times of The Ghost Mirror
Jamieson Villeneuve
August 02, 2007
One of the happiest times of my life is mixed with a little bit of sadness.
Yesterday, I received an email from Vickie Kennedy, my publisher at e Treasures Publishing. The email said: The Ghost Mirror is print ready and is now released for sale in print format.
I stared at those words for a moment, feeling my heart race. Print ready? But surely that would mean….
With shaking fingers I opened my internet browser and typed in www.amazon.com. Then I typed my name in the search field and waited with bated breath to see what would happen.
And there it was.
My young adult novel, The Ghost Mirror, was on Amazon. After what seemed like decades of work, there is was. My book. On Amazon.
I’ve had two little dreams since I first decided to become a writer. One dream was to hold a book of mine in my hands, to stare at my words on the printed page. The other was to have a book of mine on Amazon. That may not seem like very big dreams to some but to me they seemed almost unattainable.
I was literally flabbergasted, struck speechless which, as anyone who knows me, does not happen often. But as I was sitting there in the glow of my computer monitor, looking at my book now available worldwide, a memory wove its way to the front of my consciousness.
I remembered when I first started writing The Ghost Mirror. It almost didn’t see the light of day, let alone end up on Amazon.
Why, you ask? Well, mostly because I was afraid. I knew that this story, this novel, would be one of the best things I had written. I also knew that if I started it, I would not be able to stop. I was unemployed at the time and struggling to pay my bills and answer the call of a very persistent muse.
I had mentioned my fears to my step father who surprised me. He gave me one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard.
Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “A beginning should be an adventure, not a fear.”
I mumbled that he was probably right and he laughed. “Of course I am. Things happen for a reason. You’re unemployed now because someone wants you to finish your novel. This novel is important. You were meant to write it and now you have the time.” He paused. “Do you have a title for it?”
The Ghost Mirror.” I whispered.
Then write it. Just sit down to it and write it. It’s waiting for you to let it out.”
And you know what? My step father was right.
When I sat down at my computer later that afternoon, the story came pouring out of me. I had never had this happen for me. Normally writing for me is like pulling teeth; the story takes forever for me to shape it, to get it the way I want on the page.
By the end of the three weeks, I had finished The Ghost Mirror and drawn out the outlines for the next two novels. I read the novel again and again wondering how a story like this could have come out of me. It was as if someone else had written it, as if my words were a gift from someone else.
In a way, I guess they were. They were a gift from my step father.
So why is this such a sad thing? Well, shortly after my mother and my step father divorced, he and I stopped talking to each other. I won’t bore you with what he said and what I said that caused the rift; suffice it to say that we are no longer speaking and haven’t spoken for a long time.
He has no idea that The Ghost Mirror was accepted for publication. He has no idea that it’s now on Amazon.
And that saddens me to no end. It also brings to light something I’ve been trying to ignore for some time: I miss him. That’s hard for me to admit and I don’t think I could admit it if I was face to face with him. Things are always easier said when you can write them down.
We’ve gone beyond the point of being able to have a relationship with each other but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss him.
He told me to write when I would have given up on The Ghost Mirror and I don’t have words to thank him now that my two little dreams have been realized. I can only hope that he might see this article and realize how much his words of wisdom meant to me.
I can only hope that maybe, years from now, we will talk and I will say the words that I’ve been meaning to tell him for a long time:
Thank you.
Yesterday, I received an email from Vickie Kennedy, my publisher at e Treasures Publishing. The email said: The Ghost Mirror is print ready and is now released for sale in print format.
I stared at those words for a moment, feeling my heart race. Print ready? But surely that would mean….
With shaking fingers I opened my internet browser and typed in www.amazon.com. Then I typed my name in the search field and waited with bated breath to see what would happen.
And there it was.
My young adult novel, The Ghost Mirror, was on Amazon. After what seemed like decades of work, there is was. My book. On Amazon.
I’ve had two little dreams since I first decided to become a writer. One dream was to hold a book of mine in my hands, to stare at my words on the printed page. The other was to have a book of mine on Amazon. That may not seem like very big dreams to some but to me they seemed almost unattainable.
I was literally flabbergasted, struck speechless which, as anyone who knows me, does not happen often. But as I was sitting there in the glow of my computer monitor, looking at my book now available worldwide, a memory wove its way to the front of my consciousness.
I remembered when I first started writing The Ghost Mirror. It almost didn’t see the light of day, let alone end up on Amazon.
Why, you ask? Well, mostly because I was afraid. I knew that this story, this novel, would be one of the best things I had written. I also knew that if I started it, I would not be able to stop. I was unemployed at the time and struggling to pay my bills and answer the call of a very persistent muse.
I had mentioned my fears to my step father who surprised me. He gave me one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard.
Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “A beginning should be an adventure, not a fear.”
I mumbled that he was probably right and he laughed. “Of course I am. Things happen for a reason. You’re unemployed now because someone wants you to finish your novel. This novel is important. You were meant to write it and now you have the time.” He paused. “Do you have a title for it?”
The Ghost Mirror.” I whispered.
Then write it. Just sit down to it and write it. It’s waiting for you to let it out.”
And you know what? My step father was right.
When I sat down at my computer later that afternoon, the story came pouring out of me. I had never had this happen for me. Normally writing for me is like pulling teeth; the story takes forever for me to shape it, to get it the way I want on the page.
By the end of the three weeks, I had finished The Ghost Mirror and drawn out the outlines for the next two novels. I read the novel again and again wondering how a story like this could have come out of me. It was as if someone else had written it, as if my words were a gift from someone else.
In a way, I guess they were. They were a gift from my step father.
So why is this such a sad thing? Well, shortly after my mother and my step father divorced, he and I stopped talking to each other. I won’t bore you with what he said and what I said that caused the rift; suffice it to say that we are no longer speaking and haven’t spoken for a long time.
He has no idea that The Ghost Mirror was accepted for publication. He has no idea that it’s now on Amazon.
And that saddens me to no end. It also brings to light something I’ve been trying to ignore for some time: I miss him. That’s hard for me to admit and I don’t think I could admit it if I was face to face with him. Things are always easier said when you can write them down.
We’ve gone beyond the point of being able to have a relationship with each other but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss him.
He told me to write when I would have given up on The Ghost Mirror and I don’t have words to thank him now that my two little dreams have been realized. I can only hope that he might see this article and realize how much his words of wisdom meant to me.
I can only hope that maybe, years from now, we will talk and I will say the words that I’ve been meaning to tell him for a long time:
Thank you.
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