Beside Myself

Image by Danielle Scott via Flickr

Three weeks from tomorrow, peeps. Yes, I know we will remember Pearl Harbor, but it's also the publication date for EDGES. You must be beside yourself with excitement! People say encouragingly. Well, I am certainly beside myself, and excitement is merely one of the ways in which that phenomenon manifests itself.

So what does it mean when I am beside myself? Am I  literally out of my body, not myself anymore?  Or are there two of me, both unable to look in the mirror to see what's what. If I am beside myself, where exactly am I? Who am I?

I am a mother, writer, teacher, wife, friend. I am.

I am. Beside myself with excitement: this is truly a dream come true but it's also very much like being near the end of my first pregnancy, where I wanted my son so very badly and I couldn't wait to meet him, but I am  just so huge and can't sleep and can't walk, and I have heartburn on top of everything else.

I am. Beside myself with marketing: On Friday night I went to a party with a lot of other writers from the kid-lit world, where I heard about a couple of things that are NOT in my overall marketing plan. Evidently, blogs are out and podcasts are in. Facebook is okay, but Twitter reigns supreme. I left a little scared. I mean, I am on the internet PLENTY. Too much already. I was told to send invitations out for EDGES launch party ASAP. This was advice from the experts and I am the new-kid-on-the-block, so yes, you can guess how I spent my weekend, posting invites to Facebook and doing a fancy-pants evite with disco balls and everything.

Side note: If you didn't get an invitation, don't worry, please come if you are in the NYC area. It will be at Books of Wonder on December 9th from 6PM until 8PM. (Food will be involved, but of the cupcake, snack and soda variety, and not heftier fare.)

I am. Beside myself with anxiety: Will people like my book? Is "like" what I'm going for anyway? I want EDGES to spark discussions, and "like" may not even be a factor. Will people judge me as a debut novelist, or have different expectations because of my lineage? And when I'm anxious, I envision "people" out there as one entity, which is ludicrous, because a book is a relationship between it and an individual reader. Sara Zarr writes in her blog about having to read 230 books as a judge for the National Book Award and how daunting that was because of the subjective nature of reading.  She writes:  Richard Rodriguez says that the reader re-creates the book when he reads it. If that’s true, and I think it probably is, that means 100 readers could have 100 different experiences of the same book. Which can be frustrating, but is also kind of magical and also tells you something about what it is to be a person, an individual.

I love that!

Hungover from Anticipation

Husband and I watched The Hangover last night, a strangely appropriate movie for the way I have been feeling lately - and no, not literally hungover. We are about to step off the cliff into a new way of life - much like getting married, or having a child - we are moving. And not merely down the street as we have done before (and that's been stressful enough) but to the suburbs. To a house with a room for everyone and a lawn and all of it's attendant problems (such as an ancient septic). A house in beautiful Katonah in the Bedford School District where we won't have to grind our teeth about getting-our-kids-into-the-right-school. Where we will have more psychological space to write. Exciting, right?

Well, I am cranky. Like I've been slipped a roofie and can't remember who I am. Like I'm losing my best friend. And to top that off, there's a tiger in my bathroom I have to deal with. Husband and I have to find our own Doug!

I haven't been mentioning our upcoming move to Northern Westchester, about an hour outside of New York City, because it's been so amorphous, and that slipperiness hasn't had much to do with my Lit.Life except for the fact that it's taken me away from my writing time.

I sped up the finishing of the rough draft of my WIP just so I could say I finished it, and be able to give it to a friend for a critique. It is too short rather than too long, and I have since received her notes and am chewing on it with vigor. I've written before that revision is my favorite process. I had been under the impression that novels take about three drafts. Well, that certainly hasn't been my experience. EDGES was about thirteen after all was said and done. Maybe it will be a little less with this WIP, but not by much. Revision is where I can constantly work on my craft and is an immensely satisfying process. I feel like a detective. It's creating the first rough draft that is painful, and tests my faith in so many ways. But the joy of discovery in finding out "what's next" always feels miraculous to me.

So "what's next" in my life? Moving is inevitable - we have to be out of our Upper West Side apartment by June 25th so that new people can move in. What's next is that I keep focusing on my work, and having faith that we'll find Doug in Katonah. He may be sunburned and mad, but he will be authentic, and love us anyway.

He will remind me that we're near the train station, and that the city is a mere 50 minutes away.

What's next also is another CHAPTERS reading from Girls Write Now at the Center for Fiction this Friday night at 6PM. My awesome mentee Meg and I will be finally reading from a piece we co-wrote together entitled: THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR INHABITING TWO-LEGGED ANIMALS. It's quirky and fun!