I’m excited, yet tentatively so. Anyone who knows anything about the local writers’ anthology, Serving Up Memory, knows that we’ve been working on it day and night for several weeks. Before then, we worked on it a bit less frequently—say, every other day.

Our latest edition is again available on Amazon, and you’d think we’d be doing a happy dance. Well, we are. We really are, BUT last night I saw a photograph that’s way off-center on page 140. My heart sank. It’s not exactly in the gutter, but it’s close. Then a closer looked revealed that although all chapter titles are Lucida 18, two of them are bolded. Why? And how did that happen? And does it really matter? Yes and no.

The tiny errors are just that, tiny errors. They don’t detract one iota from the quality of the stories, poems, or photographs. In fact, some of the photographs are so good that they tell stories of their own, sans words. The ones I’ve included with this post are proof. How I would have enjoyed talking to the woman with the dog! She was strong, feisty, wise, and hard-working. And that photo of the four columns represents a lot of living and loving and ultimately a big heartache.

Because we chose to self-publish this anthology using CreateSpace, we have the freedom and opportunity to tweak and reupload our work as many times as we want to. That’s a mixed blessing. It enables us to keep perfecting our product, but at the same time, it prevents us from saying DONE. Until we can say that word in unison, we can’t move on with our lives—or at least with our other projects.

This morning I’m remembering that after God created this ol’ world, he saw that it was very good—not perfect, but very good. That’s how I feel about our anthology. It is good, very good, but it does have that off-center picture, and I’m sure that some critical eye might spy a missing comma or something. BUT if you want to read some stories that, though personal, are universal in meaning, check out our anthology. The pieces will touch the hearts and minds of all readers, especially those with Southern roots.

For now, Kathryn, the senior editor, and I plan to reconvene later today to fix that picture, and then we’re going to “let it go, let it go.”