Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Nia dance, my health and well-being practice, features choreography built around themes anchored by good dance music, not the hits but a soundscape across a range of musical genres, sometimes with lyrics, sometimes without. I’m thinking about a particular song today. It’s not a great song. Very synthy, let’s say, but it’s got a good beat and is easy to dance to. By Michael Bernard Beckwith, titled “U R the Answer,” it is as hokey as you imagine that title to suggest. I don’t care. I’m celebrating it today because embedded in the hypnotic rhythm and relentless positivity is a base line of truth.

It starts off with “Something wonderful is always on the verge of happening.” But it also bops along to “focus,” to staying the course to get to something wonderful.

I liked hearing that tune come up periodically this past year, especially on days when something wonderful was absolutely not on the verge of happening. Examples: One of the 35 days when rejection letters for my novel landed in my email.

This month, something wonderful went from “on the verge” to actually happening. I’m feeling pretty great about finding a publisher for my novel, The Booker Rebellion.

A small California press with a roster of fine writers picked it up. I’m excited to be among them. Signed the contract today.

Anybody who’s written a book, revised a book, revised it another 10 times, written a synopsis for the book and a query letter for the book and a one-sentence book pitch and a one paragraph book pitch knows about focus and staying the course.

After all that, when we get lucky, there’s dancing!