I have learned recently that, contrary to what I previously believed, my mom is NOT the only reader of my blog. So, hello, other readers! I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit… absent. Because writing is hard, and terrifying, and takes a lot of time.

I’ve been writing longer things, like novels. One in particular (another scary one!) is thisclose to being first-draft-done and I am itching to get back to it… but I got one of the loveliest emails that I had to share.

You know, writing is pretty much like riding a roller coaster you’ve been warned may have lost more than a few safety rails and bits of track but go ahead anyway because hey! You only live once. There are no guarantees about the future of your work, your career, or your grocery budget. And when you have a book coming out in two months, you enter what a lot of writers like to call the “Insanity Zone” where you fret and worry and fritter away every waking hour wondering what people are going to THINK about your next novel.

Will they hate it? (Should they hate it? It was awful wasn’t it? How could your editor let you put it out there like that? How could your critique partners lie to you like that? It was horrible wasn’t it- it’s the worst pile of poo ever published, etc., etc.) Can you tell I have a book coming out in two months?

You get the idea. So when an email comes in like this one, from Tess Alfonsin’s class at St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio, Texas, it feels like ice cream on the fevered writer soul. Here are my very first two reviews of Wish Girl from real live readers!!!

“Nikki Loftin’s Wish Girl is a beautiful book because when you read Wish Girl it comes to life. My favorite line in the book was when Annie said ” What is death, Peter? It’s when you stop being you, right? When that something, that spark or whatever, goes out.” It is my favorite line because it is true and I will always, always, remember it. I LOVED Annie! She’s sweet and beautiful on the inside. I like how she’s not like Gayle because Gayle was kind, sweet, and she cared about everything. Annie on the other hand was sweet and all but she also had a little “kick” to her. I also like the character Doug and Jake because you have to have a bad guy and I love how Nikki Loftin made the bay guys young. It was a sweet, loving, amazing journey of two kids all wrapped up into a book. When I read Wish Girl it changed my life because everything could really happen except the magic valley (I wish!). Whatever Nikki Loftin is doing to put all this magic into her books she should keep doing it because I LOVE IT!”

“I thought Wish Girl was a REALLY good book! The ending was a bit sad, sort of like Nightengale’s Nest, but a bit more happier. It was really sad that Annie had cancer, and that she got either hit with a bolder, or got scraped by the mountain lion. It was a bit unusual that that the valley was like its own person, and that Mrs. Empson knew about it. I thought it was strange that Annie didn’t want any doctors. Also it was weird that Annie and Peter ran away, and that Peter’s name meant stone or rock.”

And THAT, dear friends, is what is keeping me going… I hope you have words equally lovely in your lives someday. Thank you, St. Mary’s readers! Wish Girl will be here on February 24, 2015. I hope you all love it.