I Want it All

By Kerry Schafer 

 My wildest dreams for my writing career? Interesting topic, since the dreams that I've been holding onto for the last twenty years or so all just came true. Some validation for my hard work from a professional in the publishing industry. An agent. A publishing contract. A book, my book, that I could hold in my hands and put on a shelf in my library. When I dared to dream extravagantly, I'd fantasize about being one of those lucky people who found an agent or a book deal online without going through the process of querying. I wanted an agent to tweet something about how she was reading this awesome manuscript that she couldn't put down, and to know that she was talking about something I wrote. Apparently my fairy godmother was feeling extraordinarily generous the other day, because the agent, the validation, the publishing deal - these things materialized over the course of a couple of weeks. I have yet to hold my book in my hands, but the process is underway. I was literally walking around singing "bibbety bobbety boo" one afternoon. Unbelievable. Anyway, now I need new dreams. And since my wildest dreams have already come true, I figure this time I'm going to dream really big. I remember saying somewhere along the line that I didn't care if I was a bestselling author, I just wanted to publish a book. Okay, it sounded good at the time. It made me feel better about not being published at all. Now I want multiple books on multiple bestseller lists. I want a movie - a good movie - made out of Between. With somebody like, oh, Jason Momoa playing Zee. I would of course have to meet him to offer some character insights. I want to make enough money so the Viking and I can both quit our day jobs and pay off the mortgage on our property. I'll write full time, except for when I'm traveling and teaching and speaking. The Viking will be my business manager. I want to be interviewed by Letterman. Yes, I know I'm supposed to be thinking Oprah, but I've always had a thing for Letterman. I want blurbs by Guy Gavriel Kay and Ursula LeGuin and Stephen King. Probably I could go on long enough in this vein to bore everybody, so I'll let Queen finish this up for me. That's right - I want it all!