I held it back as long as I could but that first twinge of genuine anxiousness hit me while I was standing at the luggage belt in the airport. Correction—while I was looking up at the little screen that was taking forever to actually tell me which belt the bags would be showing up at. A tiny piece of that anxiety was due to it being 3:30 already and my first signing scheduled for two hours later. With cabbing it to the hotel, checking in, and then heading over to the convention center to pick up badges, I had a bad feeling that I wouldn’t make it in time. Because that right there would be typical given our history working on this book. The larger piece, of course, was the realization that I was officially in San Diego now and a printed copy of Miranda Mercury was closer to me than it had ever been ever. And I couldn’t deny it…I was starting to flip out a little bit. Thinking of all the little things that could go wrong in the next two hours and somehow diminish the moment.
I told people (only somewhat jokingly) that once I got the book in my hands, I’d likely pass out from a combination of crushing exhaustion and overwhelming excitement, but I’m happy to report that no consciousness was lost at any time. What did follow though was a sense of euphoria and contentment that I later described to someone else as “the infinite chill,” a sense that really nothing else that happened after that was even remotely important. No perceived slights or minor mishaps were going to prevent me from feeling fucking good about the simple fact that the first volume of Miranda Mercury was here and it looked absolutely gorgeous.
The book’s cover (which I’d had some reservations about initially) came out fantastic with a cool spot varnish that was put on both Miranda herself and the logo, in addition to the nice wingtips on the inside dust jacket flaps. Archaia has a well deserved rep for publishing beautifully designed books and this one was no different. I’d seen several proofs of the book while it was being prepped for publication, but that was nothing compared to this.
Most importantly, there’s a particular sequence that I’ve been having nightmares about (and I’m dead serious) that printed exactly as planned. To say any more would ruin the surprise but seeing that everything came out right was an absolute relief and the precursor to the Kool-Aid grin I’m still wearing now a couple days later. The book is out now and exists in some semi-permanent form and nothing can change that. I instantly felt like I’d won some long fought battle and was ready for more. Seeing this first book put me at ease and sparked me at the same time cause this is only the first real step.
Knowing that my partner in crime Lee Ferguson was chomping at the bit to find out if everything was in fact official and awesome, I snapped off a few photos of the book and sent them to him immediately. Couple of them are attached to this very posting.
So obviously, after this whole convoluted journey that led to me standing at the Archaia booth at SDCC ’11 with fresh copies of Miranda Mercury to stare at in disbelief, the natural question is…well, what in the hell happened next…?
We’ll talk about that sooner rather than later, so stay tuned…
{The Fiction House} 