For years I’ve been a writer. A solitary writer alone in my house, celebrating NaNoWriMo wins with my family and handful of writing buddies. Last month, that all changed. Now I’m published, with everything surreal that comes with that: an author profile on Amazon, a Goodreads author page, books to sell on my website. Nothing prepared me for the strange meshing of my previously separate worlds that this has created.

A few weeks ago I attended a training class for my corporate job. First order of business was to introduce ourselves, share our role in the company and something interesting about ourselves. There’s nothing I think about more right now than having my first published work out so I didn’t think twice in saying “I’m a published author.” Comments ensued, even a question on what I write from the the instructor. Moments later we’d moved on to the next participant and whatever his interesting thing was. Two hours later during our first break, a stranger I’d never met made a literary reference to one of my micro-fiction stories. It caught me so off guard I almost didn’t get it. Almost. Since stories are tiny pieces of a writer’s soul, I picked up on the reference quickly. He had Google’d my name, found my website, and read my stuff. It was interesting enough he wanted to ask me about it. It still gives me a rush.

Just as surreal was signing my name to a hard copy of my first book; both the signing and the fact that folks wanted me to do it. I never imagined this feeling but here I am experiencing it. I got a limited number of copies from the first edition print run and I already sold all of them. Not just to my family, probably the most surprising fact of all.

I am a writer in all phases of my life now. Not just when I’m at home or away from my daytime job. What a world I’ve stumbled into where I get to discover all the things I didn’t know I didn’t know. I’m loving every minute of it!