Hang on to Your Hat, Terrified Self

News flash: Advanced reading copies have arrived at the publisher's, and a few are probably by now in a box winging their way to me. Also, copies are being shipped to the kind literatti who have agreed to blurb my book. And are off to a really great media list.  And have been sent for humble submission to the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize judges at the Center for Fiction. Anyway. Wow. In a way, it's happening so fast.  But also in a "15-years-later" kind of way. I was thinking about not putting a photo on the back because I am weirded out by the fact that I am so much older than I thought I'd be when I finally pushed out this second book. What picture could ever represent all those years? But friends and spouse convinced me that I would be sorry to not have some representation of me at this moment to go out there with the thing.  I am sure they are right.  I would probably regret it. The whole photograph thing was a nightmare, but I think I landed on a photo that at the very least looks like me--if you squint and stand back and rub it with Vaseline. We'll see. Also, I really have the urge to slow time down, realizing that this will never happen again. Never will there be a day where I get an email announcing with glee that the advanced reading copies of my first novel are ready. I love my publisher. She is an amazing person, who does so much for literary publishing, and barely makes any money, and says things like, "I just think this should be a book in the world," and ends her email with "Here we go!"