Hooker and Brown

I walked into Café Books yesterday to drop off some promotional cards and bumper stickers. They’re amazing: really excited and helpful and looking to have me at an author signing at the street fair next week, selling books at the launch next month, and looking for any way to help promote.

So I’m standing there and beside me at the featured local authors rack are four of my books. Just sitting there. I’d never seen them before in public, barely seen them at home in the little box where I got my ten free author’s copies. There was a tiny shock as I recognized them.

Then a strange thing. Just like when the box of ten first copies arrived a few days ago at home, and I opened it thinking it was something else, and then I saw what it was, and it wasn’t the fireworks and awestruck moment I always imagined it to be. Maybe I had imagined it too many times. At the bookstore, it also barely made a ripple. So strange, eh? A lot of the emotional events of this book have been different than expected. I did feel a huge glow when I held the very first copy, an Advance Readers Copy. But now events are moving along at a string pace and the moment has passed…

I’ve been really stressed about coming back to the million little things to do for the book launch and promotion. I figured this would be fun and fairly easy, but nothing in this whole process has been simple - always really emotional and involved.

I realize that one thing that is bugging me is the craving to know what people think. I tell myself I don’t care, or that the book is done and can’t be changed, or that I won’t please everyone….but it is all posturing. I care deeply. And I must wait another month or so before I will hear some feedback.

Always waiting in this industry. I am reaching out to other writers that I know to find their techniques to deal with this. How to handle feedback gracefully, and the stress of readings and launches.

When the anxiety gets really bad I grab my Advanced Reader’s Copy and read a scene. Then I am soothed because it really is the best I could do and when I remind myself by reading, I realize how much I like it.

Back after three weeks in an RV with my family and parents-in-law.

A lot of driving but I was amazed at the beauty and space of the Yukon. There are still huge spaces out there in the world, and some of them are just stunning. My favorite part was Kluane park, home of the largest sub-polar icecap, and Mt. Logan, Canada’s highest mountain.

We took a flight just because I was so interested and it was one of the great moments in my life. I’m not sure the scale is apparent in these photos, but there are glaciers that fill valleys and are over 75 km long.

I love watching these monstrous rivers turn so gracefully. This was the first time I’d seen glaciers so big that the medial moraine of scraped rock appeared like highway lanes.

Look at the patterns (an massive crevasses) on the Lowell glacier. What has to be happening to the ice motion for patterns like that to form!@?

Looking back up the Lowell glacier toward Pyramid Peak and Mt. Kennedy.

If I ever just disappear and drop off the face of the earth, I’ll be here, hiking, skiing, and climbing. Living in the little Haines Junction!