11:34 PM. I just finished printing the PDF—it’s the designer’s first try at the novel’s interior layout. And . . . relief: she made it look lovely.
But that thought is short-lived. Because this all suddenly feels surreal—maybe even like some kind of prank—my holding it now, here, in my hands, after having spent so many years thinking about it. I wrote this? I’m in disbelief. Reading through it again now, the text feels new, alien, so removed from me. Maybe it wrote itself? And I’ll admit it: starting now, I am officially nervous as hell. The web site and trailer are about to go up, the PR’s about to hit the wires, and in a month or two, reviews will begin popping up as people actually begin reading this thing! All of my generalized self-doubt—and terrors about what I did or didn’t write right—and the realization of my boyhood dream, of one day writing the kind of novel that I would want to read—these have all coalesced under tectonic-like pressure into the diamond now held in my hands. “Any press is good press” is fine for playboys, but what about for first-time novelists? I’m scared, but also exhilarated, to find out.