The Future Will Be Here Before You Know It

So…here's the thing they tell you: Publishing moves slow. It takes FOREVER.

And this is usually true. Certainly there is a large amount of waiting involved for every writer on earth (and probably on any other planets with publishing industries). But since Strange Chemistry is a brand new imprint and launching later this year, things are moving at lightning speed comparable to the norm. From interest to offer to announcement happened pretty fast, but that's not unusual. (I know these things because I hang around with a lot of writers, so indulge first-time me here.) My contract showed up yesterday and is now winging its way across the ocean, and editor Amanda emailed me ISBNs for the US, UK and e-book editions of Blackwood first thing yesterday morning, and even now their digits are making their way into the machinery that feeds Nielsen and Amazon and such. The book already exists on Goodreads. Coverless, of course, but exists.

Today or tomorrow, I'll get my edits. And also today I'm thinking about blurbs. (That is just as nauseous-making as expected, and there's no time to wait! Or waste! September is coming! Ack! Nothing like a time crunch to induce bravery. Still nauseous-making. Send bourbon.) AND I have a few lines from a Bowerbirds song I really would love to use as an epigraph, and so I need to contact the band and their label and see if there's any possible way that permission can happen, and quickly. (Luckily, I also have a non-copyrighted snippet from a Sir Walter Raleigh letter on epigraph standby.)

On Saturday morning, we leave for a week's writing retreat with a bunch of wise and lovely writers, and the timing couldn't be better. A whole week to concentrate on edits and figuring out the next book. In the sunshine. Bliss. Perhaps they will also talk me down when I lapse into hysterics. The universe was smiling when the timing worked out this way.

Small aside: I have a cold, which I re-gave myself by not switching out my toothbrush head after I was sick a week and a half ago, so perhaps am a bit loopy. Am attempting to think cold into submission; maybe not the best strategy since last time I self-germ warfared. Anyway. All this by way of saying, it hit me yesterday:

September will be here before you know it.

Sure, in the meantime there will be edits to do, and other people will be reading the book (some of them reallly soon–hold me), and other Exciting! Things! and, soon enough, probably within the month, I'll be back at work on another book due later this year, even while Exciting! Things! happen. But I'll blink and it'll be September.

Future-is-now-slate

The future is tricksy. It sneaks up.

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