My Book Baby
15 June 2009
I originally planned to talk about our vacation to Colorado in this post (riveting, I know) but something trumped it. ME, JUST DIFFERENT SHOWED UP. It actually arrived while we were in Estes Park. We’d been home about five minutes, then I dragged McKenna to the neighbor’s house to see if any packages had arrived. To see if the package had arrived. This, of course, is a moment I’ve fantasized about since I was in first grade. Back then I thought it would happen when I was really old – like ten or so. I thought I’d cry. I thought I’d feel different inside, changed somehow. Like now I’m the real deal. A real writer.
But instead, it was similar to the first time I held McKenna. I didn’t feel like a mom right away. That feeling slowly crept up on me over the next couple weeks, as I came to memorize her every detail, every nuance of her cry. And even though I’d seen sonogram pictures, though I’d felt her moving around inside me for a few months, the ways she looked and moved were still strange to me.
It’s similar with my first book-baby. I saw the jpeg of the cover, of course, but it was so different seeing it in 3D where I noticed things like Skylar’s shirt is ribbed, and the text and the hibiscus are shiny while the rest of the cover is matte. When I flipped through it—savoring the smell of the pages the way true book lovers do— I was surprised to find certain scenes earlier in the book than I’d originally thought. To see words I wrote swimming around in there as part of an actual book.
Like the early days of McKenna’s life when Ben and I would look at each other and say, “She’s here … she’s really here…” I did that again and again through the night.
And then I checked my e-mail.
Waiting for me was the first public review for Me, Just Different. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. As a writer, you know this will happen. It’s what you tell yourself as you deal with all the rejection while you search for the right critique partners, the right agent, and the right editor—that you better get used to it now, because when you’re published, it’ll only get worse. And it’s not that the criticism’s harsher, it’s that the product is done and you can’t make any changes. All you can do is stare at the words—which are out there for anybody to read—and ask yourself if they’re true. Is your plot thin? Predictable? Should you have focused so much attention on that story line, or something else? (Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
So there I’m sitting with my book, which I’ve had in my possession merely hours, looking from Skylar’s smiling face to the computer screen, which tells me I created a pleasant read, but nothing great. It felt like I was sitting in the delivery room holding my newborn, and someone came in and started saying things like, “Her eyes are fine, but that nose could use improving. And why’s she bald? That’ll change, right?”
So the night didn’t go exactly as I’d fantasized all these years. I didn’t think I’d be dog-tired from spending all day in the car, then forced to reconcile my excitement with my first not-so-hot review. But I guess I’m now one step closer to being a real writer. Stephenie Meyers had to figure out how to withstand scathing criticism from Stephen King, so I suppose I can suck it up and deal with this like an adult. Like an author.
In the meantime, I’ll just stare at my book some more and feel wonderfully overwhelmed that it’s finally my turn, that my book has finally arrived. Thanks to those who read this blog regularly, who have read the first chapter, and who continue to say things to me like, “I can’t wait for your book to come out!” Your support makes all the difference.
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