That Thumping Sound

For the record, there is nothing quite like that thumping sound outside your door that heralds the arrival of a box of books you wrote.

All right, so these are just the bound galleys - the cheaply printed paperbacks publishers send out in advance of a book's publication to generate buzz, sales, and reviews. But still, it's a special thing to see that big stack of paper you've been red-lining and revising and rewriting ad nauseam transformed into something resembling a real book. It's got my name right there on the bottom, plus a really cool font for the title with a samurai sword running through it, and my name and the book's title written in Japanese at the top left. And did I mention it's got my name on it? In all caps?

It really is silly, but it's been something of a lifelong dream to see my name on the spine of a book. I wrote my first book - Real Kids Don't Eat Spinach, a knock off of a popular humor book of the day - in the second grade. Before that, I had published a newspaper for my street, called The Blue Spring Lane News, on my grandfather's old Underwood typewriter. (I had to hand-draw the puzzle page though.) I kept writing short stories and aborted novels all the way through high school, and finally finished a novel in college. (It was terrible; we shan't discuss it.)

Now I've made it. Here in my hot little hands is the first physical proof that this hasn't all been a dream. Samurai Shortstop - and my dreams of becoming a professional writer - are finally a reality.

Did I mention it has my name on it?