Welcome to my words
Ask a mountain climber what he's going to do after climbing a mountain and he'll say, "Climb the next one." I always thought that a glib, disingenuous answer until I started writing novels. Now it's finish one book and start the next one.
My debut novel comes out this month. It's not the first I've written--I have six manuscripts tucked into a box--but it was the first one good enough to make a publisher think my story was worth money.
For over a year, the pub date has approached in the distance and now it looms close, like an iceberg I'm about to crash into. Since January I've focused on promoting myself and making the world aware of my little book. I want to think that my first novel will be hailed like the coming of a promised messiah or a new ring tone. Everyone will stop, pony up the $13.95 retail, and not take a breath until they've devoured my story. Nine months from now health departments will note a dip in the national birthrate, all because people will have stayed up late reading my book instead of making babies. Planet Earth will quit rotating, the tides will stop, the stars will not twinkle, nothing will happen until everyone on the globe has read and praised my book.
With such less than modest goals, I am getting antsy about the book launch. I do BSP--Blatant Self Promotion--at every opportunity. No segue can be too obtuse nor too crass for me not to exploit. "How tragic that a bus rolled over your mother. While you're at the hospital, you'll have to read something. By the way, I have a book coming out." An Amway Double Diamond is a retiring wallflower compared to my shameless hustle.
So take a deep breath and hold it. March 14, 2006. The release date of my debut novel. Buy it. Read it. Then exhale. And from me, thanks.
Mario