Authors write in a cocoon. We publish with our fingers crossed and hope the cover art we chose and the condensed teaser description on the back attracts readers who will buy and enjoy our story.

Sometimes we get the reviews we crave, the feedback we need to write better. We connect with followers and friends on Goodreads, chat on Facebook, reach out through social media platforms, send out email and newsletters and refresh our websites. But it’s the appearances at book fairs and signings that really bring us up and close and personal with the people who have or will or might read our books.

I’d met her a year before when she’d bought the first two books in my New Life in Love trilogy. She’d sought me out at this year’s book fair hoping I’d be there so that she could buy a signed copy of “Belonging.” Here was a reader standing at my table, a living demographic. College-educated, professional, thirty or perhaps forty-something, an active runner and voracious reader across many genres.

We talked about the books she’s read, the writers’ voices she enjoys, and compared our mutual favorites. She isn’t a writer, but she has stories to tell. Like so many of us, life gets in the way of dedicated time to write. Too often, we let that happen, use it as an excuse, a valid mechanism for procrastination.

I’ll keep her in mind as I continue to write “The UnMatchables,” my first in what I intend to be a series of romantic suspense novels with  newbie Chicago private investigators and best friends Eddie Emerson and Kelly Gillespie whose squeaky-clean appearing clients drag in dangerous baggage.

My writer’s cocoon will launch another butterfly into the readers’ world. I’ll cross my fingers and hope you’ll enjoy the story.