It's Always A Big Deal

We just returned from an author friend's book release party. (Sherry Shahan for Purple Daze--a free-verse YA novel with "mature" content.) It was a 60's themed bash in keeping with the new book's Vietnam era setting, and it was nice to see so many of her friends celebrate her newest achievement, even though she has many books already in print.

Books are like babies. Everyone makes a fuss over the first one and showers you with congratulations and gifts (well, the actual buying of your book anyway), but after you've had a few, people (understandably) start losing track. The fussing fades away because it's no longer a novelty, it's just what you do.

So if you're the tenth child in a family, there will probably be few pictures of you, and lots of hand-me-down everythings.

But it takes just as much energy to build that tenth child as it did to build the first. Actually more, because you now have those other nine to tend to and keep on track.

So it's still a big deal to you, and still as big an accomplishment. And even if it has grown into "what you do,"  each book that follows that first one is just as special. (And something people who are praying for their first book would kill for!) The difference is, you can't expect the rest of the world to do cartwheels for you. It becomes your job to throw the celebration, and why not? You deserve to celebrate, and it's a lot more fun with others around you.

I never met an author before becoming one, and Sherry was one of the first published authors I got to know. So it was really great to see her decked out in hippie gear and taking time to celebrate what I know was several years of hard work. 

It was also good to talk to other people at the party--a nice reset on appreciating the good fortune of having even one book published. There was a woman there who told me how my talk at a local writer's organization ten years before had stuck with her.

I'm like, Hello? What in the world did I say?

Turns out, words of encouragement. About sticking to it. She said that my ten years of rejection served as encouragement to her. She's now very close to getting her first book picked up by a major publisher and she said that once she does she'll pass the same encouragement on to others.

Final thought: Sometimes when things fall into your lap--or they just happened for you easily--you don't truly appreciate that there's cause for celebration. But it's not lost on the person who's been trying for years and years. So if you're one of them, hang in there and visualize your first book bash. Then your second. And your third.

And invite me, would you?

It's a big deal.

It's always a big deal.