Publication Day Plus...whoa, now I'm losing track...

Now I’m staring down the barrel of my First Speaking Engagement. This would be o.k. except that I share some of the sentiments of those people psychologists say "fear death less than they fear public speaking." I’ve internalized all the usual gambits – find a friendly face in the crowd and speak only to Mr./Ms Friendly. Imagine them all naked. (I always wondered what audiences thought about that one.) As I live in San Francisco, I’ve added a couple of my own: Tibetan breathing exercises. And my new fave: Get them drunk. If at all possible, I plan to have lots of wine and champagne on hand whenever I do these things. Of course this still leaves you exposed to the flying brickbats of the occasional teetotaler, but then no solution’s perfect. I keep telling myself – this shouldn’t be so hard. Just pretend you’re at a party and someone asked you what your book is about, or how you got published. In that situation, the answers would just flow. Why should this be any different? Maybe the problem is that I’m standing, they’re sitting? Isn’t that a primate-threat arrangement or something? Maybe if everyone sat on the floor in a circle, still high from their Tibetan breathing, and all pickled to the gills – and I imagine I’m speaking to a single friendly, naked individual…

Lady of the Light: Publication Publication Day Plus Two

Publication day. Well, this is actually Publication Day Plus Two. You expect some noise and thunder when you’ve been waiting so long for something so precious, so precarious, so terrifying, so hungered-for. Instead you get taut, eerie silence, while you strain for the sounds of people reading. Publication Day Plus Two shouldn’t be so quiet. You want to hoist up a flag that says – it’s here! Has Lady of the Light lunged boldly out of the starting gate, or is it tanking, right from the start? Are bookstores in, say, Missouri, displaying it cover-side out? Are readers inspired, excited, charmed, or baffled? Feedback – of any sort – becomes food. The long length of time between the two books – ten years – makes this seem like the first time all over again. I'm so grateful they reissued The Light Bearer – it makes that awkward gap between books seem less important. Maybe people won’t even notice Light Bearer’s original publication date, and think, Gee, where did she come from? She sure turned out those books fast.

Publication Day Plus Four

I’m finding Publication Day plus Four remarkably similar to Publication Day plus Two. Lady of the Light is quietly out there, radiating a silent plea to readers – “Buy me. B-u-y me! Look, don’t I have an attractive cover?” (This time, I’m happy – no, euphoric – no, doing back flips – about my cover. Last time I wasn’t so lucky. But this cover...the adjectives pile up – to me, at least, it’s graceful and grand and touched with a mystical allure – thank you, Unknown Artist.) This one was beastly hard to write. The most difficult part was getting down to messing up Auriane’s life again after everything I put her through in Light Bearer. Part of me regrets it still. That poor woman. She deserved rest. Must make it up to her in the still-unnamed Book # 3.