Shock

I am maybe 12 and sitting at my desk and writing a story about god knows what when I decide that I will be an author someday.  It just…fits.  Cut to…

Thursday, May 28, 2020.

I awoke early, as usual, and felt that terrible nausea that I pray will pass each day. I get sick on the way to take Mark to work.  I think I can probably get to his work and then the hospital if it gets too bad.  Fortunately, it doesn’t happen again, so I go home and take a Zofran and try to get some more sleep.

I wake up around 11:30, feeling a little better.  I check my phone.  A text, a Timehop, an email.  I click on the little envelope icon and find a message from my publisher with a link to an Amazon page.

My Amazon page.

For my book.

Any and all feelings of sickness evaporate, or perhaps are pushed out of the way by simple shock and surprise.  I immediately text my parents and my besties the link, and when I hear nothing from Mom, Dad or Bern I call in a panic and ask them why they can’t check their GD text messages?!  A phone celebration, as I tell my dad that I am finally, blessedly, truly a published author.

Around noon, Mom comes by to take me for a cup of coffee.   She tells me she’s going home to post my link on her Facebook, and when she does, she accidentally posts to my page as me.  “Oh no!  Can you delete it?”  I go to do so, but there are already likes and comments.  Eh…so what if people think I’m talking about myself in the third person?

After we get home Mark gives me a big hug and congratulates me.  I still don’t feel like it’s real.  Friends and family start telling me that they placed orders.  I still don’t feel like it’s real.  Mom tells me she got 6 copies for her friends and she wants me to sign them.  I still don’t feel like it’s real.

When Moms’ books come, and I hold them in my hand…then what?  Will it be real then?  My final proof sits on my desk, staring at me.  It is no different than the copy I will see when Mom gets hers, aside from the fact it has “Not for Resale” written across it.  But holding it didn’t make it real, even…maybe a little more, maybe a little less shock, but thinking that there are people out there that are paying for my words?  Words on paper, scribed in ink?  It is mind-blowing.

Anyway, this is my official blog plea for you to buy my book and make me feel like a real author.  A Lovely Wreckage is a collection of poetry centering around living with chronic illness and depression.  You can find it on Amazon.  If you are kind enough to purchase a copy and you enjoy it, I urge you to leave a review there, and I thank you from the bottom of my still-in-shock heart.

That little 12-year-old girl sitting at her desk and scribbling has been waiting for this for a very long time.

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