The Gossip Queens

I got home last night from Ottawa and found a box of books inside my door. Forty-eight copies of The Gossip Queens, all shiny and new.

Now you'd think that I'd be getting used to this - after all, I've received at least eight boxes of books before this, my author copies of three other books, plus the boxes containing all the extra copies I've ordered - for my book launch, for giveaways, just because I was running out of copies.

But when I walked in the door last night, my heart thumped a few extra times. Because I hadn't seen this book in real life. Oh, I'd seen the cover, I'd seen the back cover copy, I'd seen it on amazon.com, indigo.ca and barnesandnoble.com. But holding it in my hands is quite a different thing - I've spent a big part of the last day stroking the book, flipping through the pages and reading whatever paragraph I land on.

Even more than the book itself, in reading it, I find it hard to believe that I wrote the words on the page. I mean, of course I know I wrote them, but it's as if someone else had a hand in it. It feels kind of weird - okay, more than kind of weird.

And now I'm going to start haunting book stores, checking out the book on the shelves. Every book store, every drug store, every grocery store I walk into over the next few weeks I'll head straight for the book section. Because despite all the evidence, there are days when I still have trouble believing that my book is actually on the shelves.

And you know what's even weirder? I don't think that's ever going to change.

Kate