Print by the ultra talented Amber of Hey Instigator (Click image to link to her site)

Let me be honest: I never use the word “musing” in real life. Ever. But it feels good in the title (and we all know how much I love writing titles!) And…be warned…it’s the middle of the night, I should be sleeping, and instead I’m doing therapy blogging.

It’s nearly midnight. My entire family is asleep, and I will need to be up with them in approximately six hours. I was fine when I went up to go to bed, but now I’m at my dining room table, kind of freaking out. I can’t sleep.

Finding the Ruby Slippers releases in four/three days. Even though everything I know to do is done, I feel wholly unprepared.

Creating Finding was a very different beast than creating Stealing. Writing and publishing is (to me, anyway) very similar to having a baby. With the first one, you read all of the pregnancy books and plan out things like the nursery and the wardrobe. With the second (again, this was my experience) you’re busy taking care of the first one, and everything with the second one feels a little bit…natural. It’s a little more comfortable. And then, all of a sudden, it’s time and you’re like What? Wait! Where did all my prep time go? With the last one, I had prep time!

Which isn’t to say I haven’t prepared for this launch. In a lot of ways, (all of them, actually) I’ve done a ton more to prepare for this launch than I did for Stealing, simply because I knew what to do this time. I’ve got two signings scheduled already, I did both a physical and digital presale of the book, I have my red pen and all my mailing materials ready so when UPS delivers the package on Monday I will be able to sign them and ship them out. (See– if you preorder, you’ll get the book sooner than if you wait!)

I’m on my computer now because I was laying in bed, making a list of the few things I have left to do, and I had a sudden panic attack that the file I was getting printed maybe wasn’t my actual final book file. So I ran down here, pulled up the printer’s website, and checked.

Yep. It’s the right file.

No matter how I look, I can’t find anything wrong. Which isn’t to say this book is perfect. I’m human, all of my editors are also human. We’ve done our best. And, geez do I want our best is perfect. But I have vowed not to freak out if I find a typo in my copies. (Dozens of typos…well, that might be a different story.)

I think the reason I’m freaking out now is that I’ve been so calm this whole time. I had checklists and deadlines and calendars and I followed them. Also, rather than scrambling to get things done while taking care of two kids (one each for each half of the day) and being in full time grad school, I’ve had from 9:30-3:30 nearly every weekday (except for when I’m working the other job or at school) since the beginning of September to get sh!t done. All of that calm is culminating in this…a rambling blog post in the middle of the night.

There were people who didn’t like Stealing. The two big complaints were the language (yes, there is a lot of swearing. The main character is a criminal. I don’t talk like that.) and the ending (I had the ending in mind when I started writing. It got tweaked, but it had the exact effect I intended. I’m sorry that I’m not sorry.) I have read the bad reviews and felt like I was punched in the stomach. I’ve read the good reviews and wanted to hug the reviewer. I’m no different than anyone else—I want people to like me and it hurts when they don’t.

I write because I have to write. I know that is a complete cliche, but it’s real. Ask my family. After the holiday, and going on six days of not writing at all, stuff like this happens. The words spew. But I’m not going to lie, I like it when people like what I write. I can’t change anyone’s actual opinion of the story, but I can make sure I’ve done everything in my power to make actually reading the story the best experience possible.

I just hope I’m not missing anything.

I could have journaled this and kept it to myself (maybe you wish that I had!) But I am putting it out there because I’ve been reading Glennon Melton’s posts on the Momestary blog and Shauna Niquist’s posts on her blog. Both of them are extremely candid about big and small things, and, lately, have helped me feel like I’m not alone. It’s okay. I’m okay.

So, I’m putting this out there incase you are someone, or you know someone, who is about to put a huge part of themselves out for the whole world to see and judge and critique…