It's been a whirlwind month around here. My book comes out in a month (although, psst, if you're in Australia it's available for you on May 1 which, if you're there, is today—click here), and I've been a little busy. I remember when I first signed my contract and opened my day planner to pencil in my pub date which, at that point, was seventeen months away. I remember thinking, why so far away? We could publish this tomorrow.
Shh, listen. Do you hear that? It's the faraway sound of publishing people scoffing at my inexperience.
I had no idea how much there was to do in the meantime. Seventeen months is nothing. Developmental edits, copyedits, proofreads. Cover concepts, rounds and rounds of designs and redesigns. Reaching out to other authors for advance reads and blurbs, having galleys printed and sent away for trade reviews. A million (like, actually) other conversations and meetings and decisions that I wasn't privy to (thank goodness).
And now, here we (almost) are. My author copies—softcover, hardback, audio—came in last week, and I'm trying to calm my nerves and plan a launch party. But also, life is just humming along like it always does. Sully and I have been playing a lot of Candyland. I tweaked my back today, picking Scarlett up. Our furnace quit yesterday. Barclay and I hang out and talk about stuff that's not business or publishing-related. It's a very calm, ordinary time, with undertones of TERROR AND FEAR AND EARTHQUAKE LEVEL TREMORS IN MY HEAD AND HEART.
It doesn't help that this is how my brain is: I think to myself, This might be okay. People might like my book and say nice things about it.
And then I'm like, Maybe they'll say very nice things.
And then I'm like, MAYBE JIMMY FALLON WILL CHOOSE IT FOR HIS BOOK CLUB IF THAT'S STILL A THING JIMMY FALLON IS DOING THESE DAYS.
And then I'm like, But not everyone likes even a good book. Even a very good book has people saying bad things about it. And if people say bad things about a very good book, man alive, what will they say about my book?
And then I'm like, I'M GOING TO DIE BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SAY AWFUL THINGS ABOUT MY BOOK AND IT'S GOING TO FEEL LIKE THEY ARE SAYING THOSE THINGS ABOUT ME AND THEN MAYBE THEY WILL JUST START MAKING FUN OF MY PICTURE IN THE BACK OF THE BOOK ALL OVER THE INTERNET.
It's this drastic shift from a true thing to a possible thing to a ridiculous thing.
Yesterday, as Sully and I were leaving Canadian Tire, a car drove past and Sully said, "Phew. I'm glad that car didn't run me over. I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER!"
And it was one of those moments where I was like, yes, this is my child. And I need to remember not to go from, That car didn't run me over to I'm going to live forever in one second flat. And if any of you want to hold me accountable to that in the coming months, I'd appreciate it.