The waiting game has begun. Now that PUSH has been fully copyedited by the folks at MIRA and sent off to be formatted, I’m left wondering if May 1st will ever arrive. Not that I’m twiddling my thumbs or anything. Quite the opposite, actually. I have more non-fiction assignments than I can handle, and I’m already 48,000 words into manuscript number two. Still…I’m finding it hard to focus on “new” work when the “old” work has yet to be handed over to the world.

Do all debut fiction writers feel this way in the months before their first release? Are they all as nervous and excited and off-focus as I am? Seriously. Some days I can hardly bare to sit at my desk and write. Some days I have to bribe my fingers with cookies and coffee – or a glass of red wine – just to get them to plug out a thousand words. It’s not that I don’t want to write. Of course I want to write! I want to write the non-fiction stuff I get paid for every week, and I want to write the fiction I’ve come to love. I want to write it all.

But my concentration is shot to hell, and I’m afraid it’s going to stay that way until May 1st arrives. Somehow, I’m going to have to manage this bundle of nervous energy sitting in my brain. I’m going to have to figure out a way to work through it. Because if I don’t, I might as well invest in a warehouse full of Nabisco and merlot.

I hope spring gets its ass in gear.