Finally
.
I used to be appalled at how long authors said it took to get a book from start to finish. Now I know myself to be lucky that it only took a little less than a year. And it wouldn’t have taken that long if my editor hadn’t been swamped with all of the Australia stuff from her other success, Markus Zusak. (I still smile when I think how excited my agent was about that. I don’t think my editor working with someone who won the National Book Award will rub off on me, will it? But hope springs eternal.)
And now, while I sit here and think, “What now!?” a word from Our Jane:
“A writer has many successes:
Each new word captured.
Each completed sentence.
Each rounded paragraph leading into the next.
Each idea that sustains and then develops.
Each character who, like a wayward adolescent, leaves home and finds a life.
Each new metaphor that, like the exact error it is, some how works.
Each new book that ends–and so begins.
Selling the piece is only an exclamation point, a spot of punctuation.” © 2000 by Jane Yolen
So, this is a pause in a paragraph. May my writing speak with measured tones, then, with plenty of pauses…
It feels like… waves of hysteria followed by waves of nausea. Periods of, “Oh, man, I hate the cover!” followed by “Bwa-ahahaha! I’m in the UK! No one can make me do book signings!!”
I actually have had to put them out of sight. I can’t look at them, in terror of finding typos. I can’t *NOT* look at them, because I am a ninny.
In short, D. is glad school is starting…
Wow, it looks great Tadmack! Congratulations once more. How does it feel to finally hold a copy in your hands?