A Little More Waiting...

April draws ever-so-near! Spring, April Showers and Easter eggs? Nope - at least - not in my book, pardon the pun. (Puh, not Barbados...Spring, what spring? April showers? It's the middle of the bleep-bleep dry season and, hence, Easter eggs will melt or rot).

(Today I appear to be in a bracketed mood)

April brings the release of my very first book! And I'm sitting on the edge of my seat thinking the worst...wondering if I've crossed all my t's or dotted all my i's. Did the story make sense? (too late now to change all that), should I have written it a different way? (ditto), did I forget to put something in? (ditto, again) and did I find all the errors? (" ")

I've also pushed the book, ad nauseam, to all my friends and family and insisted they tell all their respective friends and family. I've joined all sorts of groups, forums, networks (some are still a bit fuzzy in my limited realm of understanding and I still feel like a twit) and posted stuff around as discreetly and as unobtrusively as possible (maybe I need to be a little more aggressive?), all in an effort to push the book and get people to talking.

Hello? Did you say something? Sorry, must be hearing things...

And I find myself in that all too familiar place - waiting...limbo... I'm beginning to feel like the main character in my book now. Forever waiting. (Does that get your interest? Are you eager to know what happens to my heroine? Are you, are you? Well, buy the book and give it a read!!! Hint-hint-hint - www.champagnebooks.com - the book link won't be active until its ready, in case you wondered).

Last week, my publisher's sent me (along with very encouraging words and valuable advice) an ARC and Errata list instructions. Of course, when I got the email from them, my first reaction was WTF are they? Duh... Being a first time published writer is like learning a foreign language. Careful inspection and reading then told me everything I needed to know. ARC means, simply, Advanced Reading Copy and the Errata (I'm guessing its origins are Latin, so my statement of learning a new language isn't too far off the mark) is simply a listing of any final errors in the book. Like, duhh, right?

Carefully, I read it once, then twice to make sure (amazing how many I did manage to find) and then submitted my list. Then I thought, if I found all these errors, and missed them on all the other times, what more would the potential reader find as well? Groan, as paranoia set in. I had to forcibly put it in my head that I had done everything that was humanly possible in locating these errors, and did so to the very best of my abilities. But it still feels like I've forgotten something (like those days you forget to wear underwear and you wonder about that drafty feeling), maybe missed an error as my eyes burned and blurred having read, then re-read (I knew I should've stopped reading when the laptop nearly slipped and hit me in the face) the book for the umpteenth time (talk about ad nauseam).

Hmm, speaking of ad nauseam, I should stop now having bored you to tears with my idle prattle. I'll just go strike another day off my calendar as March marches forth to the 31st.

I've never looked forward to a new month coming...ever!