The Cure-All for Pub-Day Jitters

Tomorrow's the book birthday for Some Act of Vision. Hooray! Happy reviews are coming in.

And today,YA novelist Amy Plum is giving away a signed copy of the book in a Twitter-fest challenge. Tweet me!

So, what did I do the weekend before a book birthday? I spent it 32 feet up, at the tip top of an extension ladder, painting our two-story house. My sweet guy has vertigo, and I have a case of Crazy when it comes to DIY projects, so he took the vital (and by vital, I mean literally life-preserving) role as Ladder-Holder, and I climbed a wobbly, steel lean-to ladder to the roof of the A-Frame to complete the slow-but-fulfilling task of painting the seams with a paintbrush. Balancing at the top is not the scary part. It's the ascent, midway, when you feel the ladder's slow weeble, and you look up to see another ten rungs to go.You want pics? I shall deliver. Later today, I'll do Part Two of the paint job, because what else keeps one's mind off book birthday jitters?

I wonder what causes the jitters for other authors. Is it: will reviews write kindly about my book? Will readers like my book? Will anyone buy my book? Will it be buried among the million-book pile at Amazon? Too many things to worry about. I say: go paint instead. Make something else beautiful for the world to see.

One Week, and breathing

I can't believe it's one week until pub day.
Part of me wants to run around the house, flailing my hands, and screaming "gahhhhh!"
The other part (that wins) whips out this post, then puts on some subdued, professorial clothes, and heads to work.

And hey, look! A Book Vacation said some nice things about Some Act of Vision: "a great read" and "most of the novel I was on pins and needles." Four stars ain't nothing to shake a stick at. (That's Texan-speak, for those of you un-introduced to the fine art of the Southern metaphor.) Thanks, A Book Vacation!

Because of server and software glitches, I've been scrambling to copy pages from my website over to a new home here. It's not finished, but you can see my growing list of book-related fun-things-to-do, mainly involving merry toasts.

Cheers!
(breathes and counts to three)