A few months ago I posted a topic called "No Other Feeling on Earth". It was about the high you get when finally finishing a novel you've worked on for months and preparing to move on to the next one. While I still firmly believe it's a high unmatched by anything else for a writer during the writing process, there is a high that actually beats that one hands down. I hope you'll forgive my ignorance on missing it when you hear the whole story.
As you may know if you've read my previous posts, I sold my novel to River Oak two years ago. Actually, it took almost two and a half years from the time I talked to them to the time it was published, but who's counting? When I first signed the contract, I got into an almost subconscious habit when I went into bookstores. I would wander to the Christian fiction section and try to find the exact spot my book would slide into (somewhere between Michelle Philips and Francine Rivers, most of the time). For the next two years, I did it for just about every bookstore in the country I went to. In my defense, I wasn't crazy. I didn't expect to see my book there yet...it was just something to do while waiting.
Last week, I went into my local Family Christian Store and went straight to the section. My eyes flew along the spines of the books making their way to "my spot". All of the sudden, I stopped and a huge grin exploded onto my face. There it was!
The quality on this isn't so great, but my hands were shaking and I was taking it with a camera-phone. Still, maybe you get the gist of it. My "neighbors" on the shelf changed a little, but I was still in that general area. I stood there so long taking pictures and video and calling my wife about it being there that the manager came over to make sure everything was all right. For the first time, I got to point to a novel on the shelf and say "That's mine!" He pulled it down and read the back (probably because he didn't believe me at first) and then wanted to know all about the book. Turns out he's a big fiction reader and loves new stuff. He said the book had just arrived the day before, so I'd timed it right.
So now I change what I said earlier. When crafting a story, there's no other feeling on earth than the moment you finish that novel and move on to the next...
But in the life of a writer, there's no feeling that can beat the moment you look on the shelf and see your novel there for the first time. And I hope it's still as big a high for me when I'm seeing my tenth up there too (dare to dream, right?).
