Now. Here. In My Hot Little Hands.
Sun 2011-09-11 23:12:04 (in context)
- 2,850 words (if poetry, lines) long
I got my author copies of Blood and Other Cravings Friday afternoon. They arrived by FedEx, accompanied by the cheerful FedEx delivery driver within whose beat I reside. "Been a while," we said to each other as I scribbled the stylus up and down the handheld's screen in a messy attempt at my signature. "How've you been? How's the weather out there? Still cool, or warming up yet?"
Once I got the package inside, I was all, What the heck is this? It's addressed to me. I didn't order anything.
Then I saw the Tor Books return address, and I was all, I know what this is! Squeeeeeeee!
So here it is. Here they are. Two lovely copies of a lovely hardback, as pictured here. That's one reason to have two author copies: so you can pose them for the camera like this. (Although you could probably do a better job than I did. Gah, that weird foreshortened angle.)
And there was a very lovely surprise waiting for me when I opened the book for the first time so I could do the foolish happy writer-mamma dance. You know how that dance goes? It's accompanied by a song: Look how lovely the paper is! What a beautiful title font! It's a book! It's really a book! Anyway, I turned back the front cover, and there was my name, right there on the book jacket inner flap. In the nature of anthologies, there's a brief summary of each of a sample several of the stories within, the better to snag the attention of random bookstore browsers; and one of the stories so summarized there is mine. How cool is that? That is way cool.
Tomorrow morning at what my husband calls "ass-o-clock" ('cause it's a vantage point from which you can see the crack of dawn, get it? get it? See, it's funny 'cause...) he's going to drive me down to the Amtrak Station for that motorcoach to Raton NM, where I'll board the Southwest Chief train to Chicago, where I'll board the train to New Orleans. And going with me is one of those author copies. Another reason to have two of 'em? So I can keep one, and, according to a tradition started with my very first published stories, give the other to Mom.
The official release date for this book? September 13th. Mom's birthday. Which I suppose makes this a sort of birthday present. I hope she likes it. It's not exactly her favorite kind of fiction. But I suspect that's not going to be the point as far as she's concerned. Heh.