The meeting with the publisher went very well. If all goes as discussed, my book will be on the shelves next fall.
It’s the strangest sensation.
Driving home, my brain was short circuiting. I have every reason to think that this is actually happening, after so many years of it not happening. I am going to publish a book. And yet…that moment is not quite here, not just yet. When does one actually bust out the champagne? When the book goes off to the printer? When it’s released? At the launch party? When it’s positively reviewed? Sells well? When the next book deal comes?
I said to my mother, “I just realized that there will never be one final moment of victory. Just incremental triumph.”
“Like life?” she said.
Which reminded me of a message a friend sent me a few weeks ago responding to this blog. Here’s part of it:
The way I look at it is that women are ready to bloom at any moment. We are not the annual flower that blooms once in a lifetime, whose beauty is awed but is fleeting and temporary. We are perennials – ready to bloom over and over with the proper amount of care (love, sun, etc!). It is the person who thinks they have bloomed once and it is over who begins to molder. Sometimes we are dormant, but the bloom is always in there waiting for the proper care to bloom again.
Now is a perfectly appropriate time for the champagne. Ahead lies more uncertainty and certainly more work, but it’s too easy to skip the small triumphs while waiting for the big ones. I’ve done enough of that in the last nine years. There is always something to celebrate, and I intend to start toasting. Care to join me?
Thanks to Jennifer for the comments.
