Right now I am writing to you with Elvis all around me. And I do mean *all* around me. There is Elvis music playing in every room. There are photos of Elvis on every wall. The soaps in the bathroom are all Elvis themed. And just out of sight is a PB+J bar that the other hotel guests talk about with unflinching reference.
I’m in Graceland, you see. Elvis’ house is down the street a little bit. The map of the area even has a little marker for where he’s buried, as though I might need walking directions in the middle of the night.
Elvis aside, I’m posting to let you all know that the widespread rumors that have been circulating through all the important literary circles are TRUE. Ryan La Sala, esteemed children’s author and renowned short-shorts expert, has turned in his book REVERIE to his editor.
Cue the trumpets! The timpani! The ribbon dancers! And then when the music gets hushed, I reveal that not only did I turn in my book, but I turned it in 2 weeks early! Cue the rockets! The bedazzled rhinoceros! The spider chorus!
(Why am I posting this now and not two weeks ago? Simple. I’m incredibly greek and superstitious. We don’t reveal our dreams to The Evil Eye until we’re safely trapped on the other side of consequence and beyond the reach of doom. If I’d celebrated in the two weeks between turning in my book, and my End-of-August deadline, my editor would have sent the whole thing back with a sticky note reading “try again,” with two days to go. That’s how it all works.)
I promise I’ll write a more coherent post about the revising process soon, because a bunch of people showed interest and I really do think my methods create magic, but that’s not this post. This post is me feeling accomplished and scattered and coming out of a daze. I didn’t so much revise REVERIE as I did rewrite it. And from planning to pushing ‘SEND’, it all took about 86 days. I’m deep fried from it. Freeze dried from it. Just a the rind or Ryan, now.
But I feel tremendous. Turning in a book isn’t the biggest milestone ever when you compare it to book deals and cover reveals and all that, but the transaction itself has a solidity to it that feels great.
And now I have to write my second book. Which is cool as hell.
Maybe I will write it about Elvis?