Sam

Today, I wrote the dedication that will appear at the beginning of SCENTED. I'm terrible at remembering promises I make to myself, so it was particularly sweet to have this one: I promised four years ago that I would dedicate my first published book to the high school teacher who told me I had to be a writer.

I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about the shift that happened in the middle of high school, about when my parents finally realized that writing was more than a hobby for me. Before that, though, this teacher held me back at the end of her class -- creative writing -- and told me, with more conviction than I'd heard from anyone, that I needed to pursue writing. That writing is what I'm meant for. I think I drove home crying that day. It was one of those days where I had to lap the neighborhood a few times to collect myself. There were people on the internet who had been encouraging me for years, telling me that my stories were good, but to hear it from a person who could look me in the face: "Sam, you have to do this. Do you know how good you are? You have to."

Unshakable faith.

I'm going to take her a copy of the book. I don't know how she'll react to the fact that there's porn in it, but she deserves a copy. She's the reason I'm here, after all.

(In other news, publishing involves a lot of paperwork.)