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Saturday, March 22, 2014

Hang on to Your Hat, Terrified Self

News flash: Advanced reading copies have arrived at the publisher's, and a few are probably by now in a box winging their way to me. Also, copies are being shipped to the kind literatti who have agreed to blurb my book. And are off to a really great media list.  And have been sent for humble submission to the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize judges at the Center for Fiction. Anyway. Wow. In a way, it's happening so fast.  But also in a "15-years-later" kind of way. I was thinking about not putting a photo on the back because I am weirded out by the fact that I am so much older than I thought I'd be when I finally pushed out this second book. What picture could ever represent all those years? But friends and spouse convinced me that I would be sorry to not have some representation of me at this moment to go out there with the thing.  I am sure they are right.  I would probably regret it. The whole photograph thing was a nightmare, but I think I landed on a photo that at the very least looks like me--if you squint and stand back and rub it with Vaseline. We'll see. Also, I really have the urge to slow time down, realizing that this will never happen again. Never will there be a day where I get an email announcing with glee that the advanced reading copies of my first novel are ready. I love my publisher. She is an amazing person, who does so much for literary publishing, and barely makes any money, and says things like, "I just think this should be a book in the world," and ends her email with "Here we go!"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, you are an inspiration to many of us, still lost in the rejection netherworld. You should fully come out of hiding and put your name and face on this blog, said the anonymous poster here. I can see the irony.