We were so happy for her that we almost jumped up and down on the marital bed; eight long weeks of pledging, and she had reached her goal and survived.

The next day she called at noon. “Okay, I’m going to a birthday party now, I am freaking out with happiness, but this has been the most nerve-wracking experience in my whole life.” I said, “So the rest of college should be a breeze now, right?” and she said, it will.

Here is something that boggles my mind: Alexandra and I each had a goal, a dream, for the last few months. She wanted to receive her bid, pledge, survive hell week, and get into the sorority she had chosen last summer. My dream was to publish a book before I die. I was working on my sixth manuscript, a Young Adult paranormal novel titled Immortal Link. I felt in my gut that this would be the one that would make it. The writing, proof reading, rewriting, editing, waiting, changing things, querying agents, finally deciding to self-publish, creating the cover (with my daughter’s hand reaching for the indestructible, ghostly handprint of Alexander Campbell in cell #17 of the Old Jail in Jim Thorpe, PA), all these things consumed me since March of last year.

On Saturday, a friend helped me finish the cover on her laptop at our monthly writers’ group meeting, and I submitted the pdf files for the text and cover to CreateSpace which is connected to Amazon.com. The format got accepted a few hours later and I ordered my proof early Sunday morning.

Alexandra and I reached our goals on the very same day…