1-12-06

"beginners"

So it happened for the first, and last, time for me yesterday, right around 5 pm EST. Sun was setting on a translucent milky sky, gray and dun clouds turning dark, bruised reddish brown and soot black. I was relaxing in the Big Reading Chair with a smile on my face, having just finished and greatly appreciated the wild Wide Screen rush of fun called Rann-Thanagar War [which I'll talk about another time, surely] when the postman rang my doorbell, having dropped a Diamond Box off at the front door.

And it was turns out that it was the first batch of my author comp copies of Alan Moore Spells It Out.

Now, I'm as excitable as the next writer -- or fanboy-turned-pro -- but just as I was about to savagely rip that thing open and shower myself with the contents with gleeful abandon, I stopped myself. Not just because that's a kinda scary scene to picture, but more because it had occurred to me, quite suddenly and clearly, that, "This will never happen again." Not just that moment, no, but the whole experience of my opening a plain brown box to reveal the very first book that I could consider, by any reasonable exercise of the imagination, mine in a real sense. Not that Mr. Moore didn't contribute mightily, among others, of course, but I hope you see my point.

This was the first one.

So I made myself stop, just for a few, short moments and just... feel it become real.

I let my self soak it up, hence the sense memory descriptive opening. And more than a little impatience. So I tore that box open and grabbed a copy, then paged through it for a little while, soaking up it's reality in that wonderfully mundane manner. And after that, I suppose did the usual things authors generally do when they get copies in for themselves -- unboxed, quickly inspected and then filed away the majority of copies for future need and swag/gifts -- and went about the rest of my night, all that much happier.

Today's been spent in going over the published results with clearer, less-enamored eyes, making notes and planning. Planning on improvements and adjustments to this one, for whenever it's eventually reprinted. And continuing to plan for the next one in the "Bill Baker Presents..." series of interview books. Hope to have that set up and ready to be announced during the upcoming NYC con, at the end of February.

Still, there's been a solid, bright warmth in my belly today, all day. A small but constant reminder that sometimes it's ok to stop and just enjoy the moment...and those successes, small or otherwise.