peaks and valleys of the writing life

This is the view from my backyard - the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. I prefer the Appalachians but we'll save that for another post. These mountains really look ice blue and are every bit as breathtaking as they appear, only sometimes I forget to look! They're very snowy as you can see though we don't have any snow here below right now.

Recently an unpublished friend asked me what it's like being published - what I've learned and what's surprised me over the last year and a half or so. I think I'll call this the peaks and valleys of the writing life. Since I could probably write a book about life before and after publication, I'll just give you a short list. Here goes:

Peaks:
~Having an editor love your book so much that she becomes your book's best friend, and is willing to take it to the editorial team/pub board (not an easy task)
~Being paid for what you've done for free 40 years
~Feeling infatuated with your galleys/page proofs
~Holding your first book in your hands (nothing like a first book!)
~Sensing you're in the center of God's plan for your life, perhaps for the first time in your life
~Getting reader mail
~Traveling to book events and meeting readers and other writers
~Being able to say you're an author when people ask what you do

Valleys:
~Realizing your first book took five or more years to write and the rest must be done in a year or less while you're researching another and proofing yet another
~Spending 3 hours a day answering email and trying to get back to writing
~Finding that not everyone out there loves your book and won't be buying copies for everyone they know for Christmas
~Understanding that publishing is a business
~Having to give up things you've previously spent time on (not your family)
~Realizing that God's call to service requires far more of you than you have to give which just makes you lean more heavily on Him (the realization that you're not Wonder Woman occurs in the valley and then becomes a peak when you understand you're not walking it alone).

So, now that I've listed my personal peaks and vales, are you glad you're not a writer, or if you are one, can you relate to my list?

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God...by the strength which God supplies: so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 4:10-11