Finding the Unicorn

My book was officially published yesterday, and it has been a bit of a journey reaching this point. I was severely disappointed in my first novel, The Wolf Experiments, after I realized that my editor basically published my unchanged rough manuscript. I spent nearly twenty years writing The Wolf Experiments and was devastated when I realized what happened, after it was published. So many hopes and dreams were invested in my first book, only to have it stomped on and not taken seriously by a professional who took my money and said they would handle everything.

But on the rise, my new editor, Rana, worked through Finding the Unicorn, and I am pleased with the finished product. This book, like my first one, was based on a dream (from almost a decade ago.) The story was floating around in my head for several years, and one day, I spat out almost the entire manuscript, while I was at work! At the time, I worked for a veterinarian who owned two clinics. His main office was about ten miles away, and the center where I worked, called a satellite clinic, only took appointments about three days a week. For the remaining two days a week, I babysat the phone, filled prescriptions, and sold pet food. There were occasional days where absolutely no one came in. The doctor told me to bring a book, and I was working on building a website for the practice, so I was in the habit of bringing my laptop with me. One slow and rainy day, I wrote the manuscript and three years later it was published.

The book targets young adults, and people like me who like to read stories like Harry Potter, the Black Stallion series, A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and novels for nearly any age. The main character's name is Anouk. I discovered the name when I worked for Science Diet (the Hill's Prescription Food aspect of the company). I handled the entire upper New England Territory, and one of my veterinary clinic's contact was a girl named Anouk. I loved the name from the first time I heard it, and jotted it down to use in a story some time in the future. I tend to do this often. Many of my pet's names are from this list.

I don't know why I dream of dragons and unicorns. I haven't watched a related movie or read a book of this type in years, but still such things fill my head. When I was a little girl, I believed in unicorns. I truly thought that the unjust soul of man had driven the creature into hiding, and that only good, honest people could see them. I took a photograph once of a white horse in a pasture that I discovered on a Sunday drive with my mother. The horse had a strange patch on her forehead in the shape of a star. I was sure that this beautiful creature was proof of my belief. I still have the photograph now, and even with all my experiences with horses, I have yet to come across another horse with such a marking, or uneven tuft of hair. (Although I have seen a horse with a perfect heart shape on it's rump!) I had a black and white dog once with a nearly perfect bull's eye on her side.

I can only hope and dream that Finding the Unicorn while be appreciated by many. It took a lot of hard work and all of my savings to get there.