This past Saturday we celebrated the official launch of my novel, The Mosquito Hours. I was thrilled and humbled by how many people came out to hear me read and have a book signed. And so incredibly appreciative. THANK YOU!
Hosting a book signing is something like being at your own wedding—when you think you are talking to everyone there but then keep feeling like you’re being pulled away and not talking to anyone enough at all. And you’re wearing something pretty but not nearly as spectacular as your actual wedding dress. Also there’s no cake or Chicken Dance.
While I was not wearing a veil, I did bring my green tea latté. It was green tea time and you don’t mess with green tea time. I would smuggle green tea into any number of events for which smuggling in green tea is totally inappropriate if they happen to coincide with green tea time. I HAVE smuggled green tea into any number of events for which smuggling in green tea is totally inappropriate because they happened to coincide with green tea time. ‘Cause you don’t mess with green tea time. Which is around 2:30 or 3:00 at the latest. I have been known to push it to 3:30, but those are extraordinary circumstances. Or vacation when I throw all propriety to the wind.
I have to tell you, figuring out the little message to write when signing your novel is very hard. I can write entire books but an 8 word message eludes me ... Go ahead, you try it. I am a writer and not missing the irony in this. (This is ironic, right? Don’t wanna go all black fly in your chardonnay on you.)
While I was reading, one of my little girls walked right up to me and conducted a fairly prolonged whispered conversation. She had some very important questions. Inquiries that could not possibly have waited until I was through reading aloud to a large crowd of people. She was aware that something big was going on, something big that I happened to be facilitating which prompted the whispering, but I guess its magnitude was not great enough in her perception to thwart interrupting me. This is the same kid who, upon witnessing me editing a proof copy of the book, said:
“Why is your picture on that book?”
“I wrote this book.”
“YOU wrote a BOOK? Daddy, did you know mommy wrote a BOOK?!”
I could pretend I was actually surprised by all this but my writing aspirations are neither food nor My Little Pony, so, you know ... not particularly on her radar.
The launch was a wonderful experience and so much fun! Looking around that café, I was filled with gratitude. I know how lucky I am and I want nothing more than to adequately express how much the support means to me. But the words fail me once more. (Irony again. Right?) To everyone who came—and everyone who wanted to come but could not make it but really wanted to and went out of their way to tell me—my gratefulness knows no depths! Your support and enthusiasm bolsters me through the writing blocks, the writer’s doubt and helps me persevere through those times when it would be a lot easier to give in to fatigue rather than open up the laptop. Writing a novel is a collaborative experience—the writer and her editors, and then, later, the book and all its readers. So, I could not have done this without all of you. So, humbly, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you!
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