Stephanie Morrill

A brief moment of glory

15 December 2009

So the Barnes and Noble down the street from me sent me an e-mail over the weekend saying they’d received a shipment of Out with the In Crowd, which was quite unexpected since the official release date is January 1st. Ben and I were at the mall anyway (we really were), and decided to stop in and see the books.

When you come up the escalator, if you look a little to the right, it’s like BAM, there’s Skylar. They have a ton of copies of both Me, Just Different and Out with the In Crowd, and they’re all faced COVER OUT. Very exciting stuff.

And since I’m doing a signing there on January 23rd, they have a poster of me up in the display window facing out to the mall.

I’m aware it’s totally stupid. And vain. And other unflattering adjectives, but I loooove walking by and seeing the books in the display window. I could do without having my picture there, but the books … that’s pretty sweet.

Part of it, I think, is because there are so few “glory” moments in the writing life. It’s a lot of time by yourself, a lot of self-criticism, and a lot of inviting others to tell you what they think is wrong with your book. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s a lot like pregnancy. A ton of investment up front, and after labor, your reward is something that demands some more hard work from you.

So seeing the books in the window was akin to a month ago when McKenna asked for a bite of parsley (yes, I’m serious), and, when I handed it to her, she said, “Thank you, Mama.” Just like we’d been working on for months and months.

And now to go celebrate with some chocolate. Can I just say that I’m currently loving adulthood? I’m about to go upstairs to my kitchen and rip into a bag of chocolate chips without asking permission. So cool.

Happy Tuesday, guys.

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