When you’re getting closer and closer to a deadline, do you start freaking out? I’m just about to that point myself. At midnight in nineteen more days,
My shiny new cover art! isn’t it pretty?
will be out. I’m finalizing some promo things, still exploring others, and feeling like I can hear the clock ticking over my head, along with a nagging voice that says I’m never going to have time to get everything finished. It’s almost enough to make me want to crawl in bed and pull the blankets over my head.
If I do that, I never will get everything done in time.
So I’m plotting out my upcoming guest blog posts on a calendar, and working out details for the release day party over on my Facebook page. And getting more and more nervous every day about my book, hoping that everybody loves it as much as I have. It’s hard not to worry that someone will hate it. And silly, because, as a reader, I know not everyone likes the same books.
But this one is mine, so I want everybody to love it.
So I’m trying to distract myself from that concern with all of the other things I have to get done for release day, in addition to all of the normal, every day things that need to be dealt with between now and then–the household chores, cooking, laundry, the evil day job, rewrites on the second Medusa. There’s plenty there for distraction, but in the back of my head, another part of my brain is in constant book mode now.
I’m sure this isn’t anything unusual for a first-time author. But since this is my first published book, I’m working hard to stay out of freak-out mode, and, I think, just skirting the edge. At least, for now. Ask me in ten more days. Or fourteen. My assessment may be different by then.
Why is there no chocolate in my house??
Okay, time for another deep breath. All right. I’m better for the moment. If you’d like to help lessen my freaking out, you could plan to join me over on Facebook on release day (January 28, in case I haven’t talked about it enough over the last months). I’m going to do a couple of giveaways, between there and here, copies of the book, a gift certificate or two.
And for now, I think I’m going to practice my deep breathing for a few minutes, before I go back to my enormous to-do list.
Nineteen more days!