OMG My Book Baby Has Arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here it is – here is my published book:

It arrived today via a UPS courier.

This now means I am a published author OMG!!!!

So what does it feel like to hold my book? My very own first book that I have written?

Strange.

It feels really, really strange.

It’s like: WTF – did I do that?  Did I write all that?  Really, really did I do that?  That came out of me???  

And not having kids, I can only wonder if mothers feel the same when they give birth to their first child. It’s a sense of wonder and amazement – like: did I really do that?  Did I really produce you???

And I just feel quite dumbstruck.  Quite awestruck.  Quite almost-lost-for-words-struck. Really quite, well…

So having lost the capacity for speech I have just sat and stroked my book.  I have traced lines and shapes around the cover and swirled my finger over my name.  I opened the book very carefully, easing open the cover, so as not to crease the spine.

Then I said ‘To hell with it – it’s my book’.  And I sprang open the pages and stared.  Then I stroked the text.  Then I sniffed the pages.  And I got my face in real deep.  I buried my face in the words.  And I found myself mesmerised by them.  ALL of them.  All of these are all my words.  And there are so MANY of them!!!

And I really cannot get over how something so small and so seemingly ordinary can have such significance and import on my life.  I cannot believe how these little pieces of printed paper bound in some shiny hardened card can have such a profound impact on my life.

It’s just so frickin bizarre.

It feels really amazing and I know this sounds OTT – but it feels monumental.  And I don’t use that word lightly, but I mean it.  Publishing this book means more to me than anything else I have ever done in my life.  And now, I feel properly proud.  Like a properly proud person who has achieved something and done something.

And it may only be a book – but it’s my book, it’s my words and it’s my baby.

And now the time has come to send my baby off into the world.  I have brought him up as best I can and now it’s time for him to go off and make his own way.  Like any normal parent I am anxious and worried, but also full of joy and hope for the future.

So today is monumental; because today is like giving birth, the first day at school and graduation all rolled into one.  And that’s a lot of time that just got packed into one moment.

And so I will cherish this moment and wipe the tear from my eye as I watch my baby go off on his very own adventure.  A part of me, but also apart from me.