The Short, Sweet Ride

Every time you set a book in motion you become aware of the number of individuals who gave something of themselves to it.

A book set off into publication reminds you of the photos of baseball games in which a batter lofts a home rum on its ride, a few brief seconds of aching beauty when the apparent arc announces to all who follow it the intent of clearing the fence before landing somewhere outside the part.

You are reminded of your literary agent, who announced during the course of a lecture she gave that she would have it in stores by October of this year.  You think of the Big Six publisher in New York who said okay and you think of the actual publisher to be, who came out of the shadows and pressed for it, showing you in the course of one phone call why you should indeed go with them.

You saw an editor whose vision helped you remove the written equivalent of throat clearing, allowing you to arrive closer yet to your original vision of the work.

Thinking you were pretty competent at copyediting, you were given to recognize the impossibility of the writer being able to catch all the myriad usage matter.

And now that the ARCs are out with requests for blurbs,you see Chris Moore romping through the Introduction and Jerry Freedman up with a fine take, and Catherine Ryan Hyde saying in so many words that you had written the book on fiction.  Last night, just before Tom Boyle's speech at the writers' conference,he winks, says he's heard you have a book on the way; and Digby Wolfe saying sure, I'll be glad to, and Brian Fagan chiming in, and those two stalwarts from Bantam Books, and suddenly you are over the fence and out of the park, launched into the expectations of the public.

It is only a short ride out of the park and into the downward arc but it is a glorious and sweet ride, made sweeter by those you know and care about who checked in to say hey.