On humility~sort of

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so fucking close ~ 

    I loaded my first book (ever) to be published on Amazon.com this morning.
    I pulled it down shortly after. A temporary necessity.



    There's something really humbling about things not going your way. It's like, oh yeah, it's not always up to me, after all. And from afar, that's kind of a cool way to see it. Only, I'm no where near afar. I'm smack dab in the middle of it. And from here, it straight up sucks.

    Or does it? I mean, what if it had gone exactly as had hoped? And it was simply like switching on a light? Wouldn't that be a bit, anti-climactic for me? Well, I guess I'll never know how I would've handled things, had they gone differently. 

   Point is, my book was up for less than an hour. Luckily, I knew well enough to tell only one person, knowing he would buy it right away. We found out there were some bugs. First time self-publishing, not too big of a surprise. But BOY! It kind of made my heart race a bit. I haven't felt stress like that in a while. I don't miss it. It made my chest tight and my breathing labored. I think that's how I used to feel often. I'm guessing the Red Bull and Hot Tamale candies didn't help.

   Anyhow, as quickly as I started slipping down that rabbit hole, my wiser self snapped in to action. "Perspective!" it yelled. Oh, right! Perspective! This is NOT the biggest deal in the world. I do not have to lose my head. I can breathe. I can slow time, my thoughts, my heart rate, down. 

   And it worked. Just like that. No big deal after all! I called tech support, talked it through with two really helpful guys, temporarily pulled my book down until we can fix the file, and called my best friend.

   It felt like a lot of drama this morning. I created all of it by reacting as I did, which seems strange. I guess fear for me looks like drama- lots of sweeping gestures and meaningless spoken parts.

Um...can I get a costume change, please? I'm just not feeling this anymore.

So, it turns out that the electronic version is still somehow tied up. WHAT EVER!! I know it will eventually be available to the public. For now, it looks like one can pre-order the hardcover ~ and that's really REALLY wild.

Damn, I guess I'm a published writer now? Life is so unpredictable...xo

   





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