It’s a book

A couple of weeks ago I got word that bound galleys were in and went into Harper Collins to tag a few and write notes to send some friends who may be able to help with coverage and people I have asked to write blurbs. Stupid me, I didn’t quite realize that a bound galley was, you know, a book.

A friendly publicist walked me into the conference room, where a pile of books were waiting for me and I gasped. I waited until she left and then I just sat there and stared at the books and felt a huge surge of emotion, even tears forming in my eye. I had been thinking about this book for four or five years and very actively writing it for a year and now here it was. all those words I had typed, read, edited, rewrote in pixels and on printouts were now… a book.

Writing can be pretty lonely and pretty unnerving and to see my book as a book was just an overwhelmingly wonderful sensation.

When i got home and started reading it, I had some different thoughts and emotions: “Oh my God, this is real. I am really putting this out to the public. I had some doubts and insecurities — not about the writing but about putting my private self and family life out there like this. And lines that I always thought I’d get back to and tweak or fix, well now they were going to be in the book. But that was okay. I just kept looking at the thing and thinking, “It’s a book.”