At last, finished writing my book!!!

For years, I wanted to write a book entitled "Embrace Your Changing Self".  Many of the people who have helped me most in life are people whom I've never met but who wrote books about happiness, about parenting, about succeeding at work, about spirituality.  I felt that I had something of a gift for reflecting on the ideas in these books and putting them in my own words and applying them to my own life and that I too might be able to help others as these authors have helped me by sharing my thoughts.  So I dreamed that I could write this book and, through it, have a positive effect on at least a few of the people around me.

But the idea of writing a book was intimidating.  What if I poured my heart and soul into drafting a book and could not get published?  Could I really convince anyone to publish it?  I'm just an engineer, not a psychologist or someone with years of Buddhist training.  Could this all be just a dead end?

Year after year, my friends and relatives would ask, "So how's it going on your book?"  I'd answer sheepishly, "OK.  Just writing a little here and there."  But I was actually embarrassed because my progress was so slow.  I had writer's block.  The whole idea of investing this time and possibly never getting someone to publish the book, the idea that nobody except friends and family would read my book and that even they would do so out of loyalty and a recognition of how important this is to me--all this left me unable to just create, to just let the words flow.

But tonight, I celebrate.  I've written my book!!!!!!!  This is my 200th posting on this blog.  In my heart, for several months, I've felt that reaching blog posting #200 would mark the realization of my dream.  200 blog posts feels like enough blog posts to say that I've produced as much material as a person might find in a book.  I've written my book!!!!!  It no longer feels like something that I hope to do someday but that I have no control over and that I'm not making much progress on year after year.  

Thank God for the Internet, for the ability to express myself without having to persuade a publisher to invest in giving me the opportunity to reach out to others.  In the last few months this website has grown from 300 page views per month to 600-700.  That's not an amazing number, but how many people would I have reached with an expensive, physical paperback or hardcover book?  Maybe 10, including my wife?

Tonight, I celebrate.  I'm entitled to it.  I realized one of my life's dreams.  I wrote a book.  The posts I write in the future are just adding to the dream.