Ok, perhaps the word abyss is a tad melodramatic. But, that is what it feels like at times: trying to juggle the old normal while pieces of the new normal are tossed in, often with the delicacy of a missile launcher.
This is a dream come true, ABSOLUTELY. And I am 100% excited about my very first novel getting published! But, the whole process can feel like trying to tread water in the swells of a stormy sea while attempting to train dolphins with one hand and tie a clove hitch with the other. I only really know how to competently do one of these three things and did not see the other two coming.
You see, I thought that writing the book was the hard part!
Silly, silly, naive, unpublished me.
Turns out, writing the book only gets you about half way (a third of the way?) to realizing the dream of your book entering the world in professional, physical form, and then finding its way into the hands of the audience that will appreciate it.
And, to be honest, I have ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE at doing most of the other things involved. So, I’m trying to learn on the fly. I have attended lectures/classes, soaked up enough advice to thoroughly scramble my brain. My head is bobbing under whitecaps of information as I try to digest it all, plan out next steps.
Build a website and move my blog to it - done, kinda.
Write a press release - a what? Ok, that's gonna take some research.
Set up a launch and signings, scheduling and timing everything to correspond with the book release - working on it.
Attend events to pitch the book - wait … what? Events with … PEOPLE? Lots and lots of PEOPLE? Shit. That sounds a tad overwhelming.
All the while, as I smack at tasks popping up like those annoying plastic arcade moles and I simultaneously struggle to finish my third novel, the monsters in my head see an opportunity to mess with me in the cruelest of ways.
Nobody is going to read it, they say.
There are so many great books out there. Why would they want yours? Your time is past. You missed your window, they taunt.
Crawl back into the shadows, they suggest.
My goto method for shutting them up lately is feeding them coffee and the occasional ice cream sundae.
They like to eat their feelings.
In the silent moments, as the monsters feed and plot their next attack, I remind myself that it is I and not they who (in theory) am in charge and forge ahead.
And, in the spirit of forging ahead, I am about to attend my very first horror conference as (drum roll please) a published author —a participant rather than a spectator. I will be attending NecromoniCon in Providence, RI, August 15th - August 19th 2024! There, my monsters and I will be helping a group of prestigious writers to launch a soul-wrenching anthology titled Monsters in the Mills. (Click yo order!)
When my monsters poke at me and ask what credentials I could possibly have for my work to stand aside that of such talented writers, I like to remind them that I have a poem in this anthology. A poem of which I am, in fact, quite proud titled “In the Belly of the Mills.” I also inform them that this tome is chock full of monsters MUCH scarier than they could ever hope to be. So, they’d better ZIP IT.
I also have a killer piece of flash fiction and a spooky recipe coming out August 3rd in a horrifically wonderful horror-themed cookbook titled Cooks of Horror: A Ghastly Collection of Recipes From the Author Members of Books of Horror, of which I am equally proud (click to order!). If you have ever tried my focaccia, you are going to want to get ahold of this! And, if you have not, you’ll want to see what you have been missing!
My monsters are somewhat silent regarding this. They know not to judge my focaccia.
I will end this post with a heartfelt invitation to come see me if you are in Providence at NecromoniCon! I would love to meet you, and introduce you to my monsters, of course. It would be rude of me not to… You can help them to practice the new role I have assigned them (under threat of coffee/sundae withdrawal) as promotors of my work instead of detractors.
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