On Pub Day

Wow, guys. It's finally here. Today THE LOST PLANET officially leaves my hands and heads out into the world, to hopefully find its readership among science fiction fans, and maybe even some readers who don't think they like science fiction.

I've been so busy getting ready for this point, I haven't had a lot of time to reflect on how I feel about it. It's been about fifteen months since my book sold, but I still kind of can't believe that something I wrote is going to be sitting on the bookshelves of people I've never met. That is beyond surreal to me.

But I'm also incredibly proud of this little book. When I was in grade school, I loved writing SO MUCH--it wasn't so much a dream that I would be an author some day as an expectation. And then I grew up and got sidetracked by life and the zillion wonderful and not-so-wonderful distractions it offers. I still thought about writing, and even tried it again every once in a while, but I didn't get serious until the day about four years ago when I realized that if I didn't put forth some serious effort RIGHT NOW, my dream/expectation was probably never going to happen. And that scared me.

Writing a book takes a ton of effort, and a lot more knowledge than just how to put pretty sentences on a page. But I've had the best, most satisfying time putting in that work, and I've made some amazing friendships along the way. I hope my little book brings readers as much enjoyment as it brought me writing it.

Every once in a while when I'm talking about my book to someone who's not a writer, they'll ask a few more questions than usual and get a bit of a hungry look that makes me think, This person probably has a book they've always wanted to write. And I wish I could just grab these people and say "Start writing NOW." Nobody says, Man, I wish I'd spent more time at the office, right? I wish I'd watched more TV series, seen every single episode of Law & Order at least five times. I wish I'd spent more time loafing around on the Internet, browsing my social networks over and over. If you've got a dream, carve out time for it. Find a way to make yourself do it--a calendar, a reward system, whatever it takes. Because keeping that promise to your dreamer self? It feels really good.

I'm not going to rewrite my entire acknowledgements here, but a huge thanks to everyone who's cheered me on along the way--family, friends, critique partners, my agent, my editor, friends who I've only met online. Your support has pulled me out of my hidey-hole, gotten me through some ruts, and most importantly, made this whole endeavor a ton of fun.