What I Did Today (in 2019): February 1st

2/1/2019: Woke up about 4:30 AM and checked e-mail for any late word from John and found messages from Mr. Jerome that the publication announcement [for A Grave on Deacon's Peak] had gone forth, at least on Facebook. Shared with friends, then laid down to try to sleep, but couldn’t. So, up, said Rosary, took shower and dressed. I am oddly even; not too excited but neither very calm. Am I afraid to be happy? All experience seems to mitigate against it, at least until I have a physical copy of the book (or a modest wad of cash) in hand. Try to finish (Korm and the) L(ost) L(ibrary) today. Wondering what the response from my Facebook connections will be.

Tom Villareal and Alan Peschke were the first to respond. Tom said this:  Keep me posted! I know you have to keep the first copies for the family but I want to BUY the first copy that's for sale.

Me: I'll certainly let you know what's going on. I've been working on the book for 2 years now (closer to twenty since I had the dream) but didn't like to say much about it.   Many a slip between the cup and the lip, you know. Now that the cat's out of the bag I have to own up. Whether it succeeds or flops, it's done now!

He:  If it's printed, it's a success. You are the 3rd author I now know personally. All from Seguin. I'm extremely happy for you and can't wait. I'm going to have to start a book section for you Seguin authors!

About 7:45 AM I figured this was such a fortunate day I should go out and spend my last $2 (cash) on a Powerball. While I had thought that my reactions to going public with the book were very muted, my body seemed to think otherwise. I found I wasn’t slumping along but walking upright. My eyes, while darting to the ground now and then to check my footing and look for pennies, were looking straight ahead instead of my head being bowed. I was holding myself up as if I were worth something! All my interactions, from the guy holding the door open at D(ollar) G(eneral) in case I wanted to go in, to the lady at Lone Star, to the car pausing to let me go ahead at a stop sign, were cheerful, confident, and benevolent. I had value! A place in the community! And people seemed to sense it (at least in my brightened attitude they did). I looked at everything as I passed. I was a Seguin author. My presence elevated (just a smidge) the city of my birth. Nothing was different, really, from the day before. I had no more money. There were no physical volumes printed yet. I’d have ramen for breakfast and clean up cat poop, drink weak tea and work on my present short story. But everything was different to me because I felt different.

Now my left eye is zinging. Yeesh. It would be just about Babellian to have a stroke right now.

Reminded all day of the anecdote by D. H. Lawrence: “The very first copy of The White Peacock that was ever sent out, I put into my mother’s hands, when she was dying. She looked at the outside, and then at the title-page, and then at me, with darkening eyes. And though she loved me so much, I think she doubted whether it could be much of a book, since no one more important than I had written it. Somewhere, in the helpless privacies of her being, she had wistful respect for me. But for me in the face of the world, not much… Anyway, she was beyond reading my first immortal work. It was put aside, and I never wanted to see it again. She never saw it again.

After the funeral, my father struggled through half a page, and it might as well have been [in] Hottentot.

‘And what dun they gie thee for that, lad?’

‘Fifty pounds, father.’

‘Fifty pounds!’ He was dumbfounded, and looked at me with shrewd eyes, as if I were a swindler. ‘Fifty pounds! An’ tha’s niver done a day’s hard work in thy life.’

Andy came out at lunch and told me I could have the leftover [stuffed] bell pepper and not to make supper: they’re eating out with Amy. Knew I should be doing more writing, but couldn’t, but had managed a respectable swathe. 12 Rules [for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Jordan Peterson] and Boston Legal. Laid down for a nap and got up at 4:10 PM to the sound of Kam arriving. Got up, grassed and fed dogs. Weather overcast but partly sunny in the afternoon, and at least no more rain. Wrote John e-mail. Reading more 12 Rules all evening. No one - not even Kam – came out to see me.

Thought about how in 6 months – if I survive – I will be as old as Mom ever got to be. Imagine. At my age she had five kids, grandkids, and had been suffering through progressive arthritis since at least from when Susan was born (remembered image of Susan as a very little girl – maybe almost two – singing “Hova God” at the Kingdom Hall). 

Notes

I was rather (cautiously) full of myself for not only having completed a book but also getting it published by the first company that I submitted it to, not completely realizing what a rather mediocre accomplishment that had come to be in the world of modern publishing. Korm and the Lost Library was another story of the Morgs that I was working on at the time, and a tale I am still proud of today. It was the day after Amy's birthday, which explained the family's eating out. I was reading a borrowed copy of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life; this was the early days of his celebrity, but he was already causing controversy for his support of 'the gods of the copybook headings' (see Rudyard Kipling), as it were.