Big Day coming up, the day I will go bookstalking for the first time. I’ve heard real authors talk about doing it, I’ve seen their pictures, may as well be goofy and have fun with it this time because your first book only comes out once, right?

Technically, though, I did go through this once before… sorta. A few years ago or whenever it was, the first novel I ever ghostwrote was due out, so I got myself all excited and on pubday I went out looking for it in a Barnes & Noble. Not there. So I checked another Barnes & Noble. Not there either. I checked other chains, indie bookstores. Not there. Checked pretty much every bookstore I passed. Not there, not there, not there. I felt a little deflated.

So this time, maybe, hopefully, fingers-crossed, the book will actually be in a store and I will get to see it. I don’t want to get my hopes up, so we’ll see what happens.

Other than that, I’m having a very hard time keeping afloat with all the things I need to do, should be doing, want to do, am expected to do, etc. Can barely handle it all, which means I freeze up and do nothing and that’s really helping things along, let me tell you. Sometimes I like to make myself feel better by berating myself in my head: I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this, SHE can handle this, HE can handle this, everyone else can, why can’t you?

But then I realized yesterday, I always say that. And then I do handle it all—somehow. Obviously not everything I want to do can be done. I have to pick and choose. And some things are slipping, violently, and I’ll have to let go, or they’ll let go of me, and I’ll disappoint some people because I always do.

But I’ll survive it somehow. It’ll all get handled somehow, by someone—maybe even me!

That said, if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t written back yet it’s only because I’m feeling overwhelmed at the moment. Sorry. I’ll email soon.

And if you see my book in a bookstore? Please send me a picture. I don’t know if it feels real yet, so I’m collecting photographic evidence. That way, if I wake up in the middle of the night and question my whole existence, I can look at the pictures and tell myself all these years of hard work turned into something.

And to help you out in your stalking missions, what you’re looking for is small (approx 8.8 x 6 x 1.1 inches). It’s black, white, gray, and purple. It’s relatively thin, just 272 pages. And, if I do say so myself, it looks pretty cute. Hope you like what’s inside.