Sent To The Publishers

This one is for me...

Little Hoss pushes her brother out of the way, a hard shove and his socks slide away on the hardwood floor in the kitchen.  He responds with a fury that only a 10-year-old little brother can.

"Hey!  I want to push the button!"  Then he pushes her back.  She leans to her left but holds her ground.  To give up now, to succumb to the shove, would admit that her little brother might not be so little anymore.

"No!  I'm doing it!  Go away!" Little Hoss says.  It's direct and to the point.  It's what older siblings say to younger ones so that there is never any doubt who is in charge.

However, with kids that are still not teens, tactical thinking is not their strong suit.  They have forgotten about the toddler.  It's easy to forget about him if he decides to let you.  He's small, doesn't even come to my waist yet.

"Me! Me! Me!  I want to do it!"  Then he throws himself into a tangle of shoved legs like they are an 8/10 split and he's a 14-pound ball.  He crashes into someone's knee and falls on his butt.  Gets himself up, seems to throw a dirty look at everyone at once, and then starts pushing lower halves.

The dog comes crashing in because he's the dog and something is going on.  Screaming, yelling, wrestling:  all things that the dog wants to be a part of.  The dog jumps up on my daughter who pushes him down, charges the 10-year-old who dodges him,  and then licks the toddler because licking is awesome.

The problem is not that there is a battle royal in front of my computer sitting on the kitchen counter.  The problem here is that they are collectively pushing me.  Dad is getting smacked around like I'm a pinata.  And you know what, I want to push the button.  Screw-off.  I wrote the book.  I want to be the one that sends it off to the publisher.

All this is a bit surreal a the moment and it's a memory that I don't want to forget.  A quick twitter pitch, a hopefully funny query letter, a partial request--all that leads to a full manuscript request from someone that isn't my wife.  Someone is going to read the book.  After they read it, then they will decide if they want to publish it.

I've looked back over this blog from the last year.   It's fun to mark how everything has come about.  I spent a lot of time hiking in the woods thinking.  That's where the outline was formed, dodging spiders and accidentally sneaking up on people having sex in their cars.  It's where I explored themes, came up with the first line, decided where I wanted the book to end.  That shit took almost three months.  But somewhere in those woods and besides those ticks, I decided fuck it.  If I'm going to write, then let's get serious about it.

And so I did.  The first class on writing I ever took was taught by my kid's elementary teacher.  No shit, seriously.  Go look up the blog from last year.  I joined communities online, began to research on the business side of things.  I joined a writers group--with my stomach in my throat and a nervousness that made me jittery enough that I could phase through walls.  I have never been as scared as when my first piece was read out loud to 12 strangers that had no idea who I was.  I've had guns pulled on me, not as scary as that first time getting your work read out loud.

It's weird hitting 20K words on the book and not realizing it.  I kept a schedule to write (some of the best advice I ever got).  I wrote in the morning for an hour, entertaining the toddler with juice boxes and cell phone videos.  Then another hour or two at night when I finally put everyone to bed.  On days when the toddler went to preschool I would hit four or five hours straight of keyboard pounding.  I wrote in a castle.  That was awesome.

Then having my wife print off what I had written and bringing it home as I never had a thought to print anything out.  I hadn't even known I had hit 20K words.  Holding that first manuscript in my hand and feeling the weight of it, holy shit this was real.

My daughter made a cover for the book.  I have it still and plan on framing it.  She's awesome.  My whole family came up with a working title:  No Changing Tables In The Men's Room.  My son's told me to get back to work.  Really.  My older son is a beast of a time manager apparently.

All that leads to getting requests for a full manuscript.  Professionals are now reading my book.  Like, more than one.   It makes me want to vomit and dance at the same time.  Maybe they will like it.  Maybe they won't.  I don't know.  But it's ok because this is just the start.  And I want to remember the start, really really badly.  My stories don't ever seem to dry up and there is so much more to tell.

So I want to push the button to send my book out.

The fight is going good and I'm a bit concerned as they are getting closer to whacking the computer.  That would probably put it in the sink.  That wouldn't be good.  Or maybe it would?  Afterall, even though I wrote the book, the truth is that the kids provided the stories.  What happened at the Mormon Jail would have been boring without them.  And who eats grave dirt and licks windows?  My kids do.  A T.V. pilot would have been boring if it was just me going around cleaning things.  And without my wife, none of this would have been possible.  None of it at all.

I realize that it's not my book at all.  It's theirs.  It belongs to the kids who ran like nuts through a state fair.  It's my wife's who always asked me when I was going to write again.  It's the twist ending that I call my toddler.  This book belongs to all those other Dad's that had the adventures with me and kept me humble.  It's to them and their kids who ask me "Where do you want to go again?  Are you sure?  Ok, we are in."    I'm just the guy that got lucky enough to tell the stories.

"Ok, everyone gather up," I tell my kids.  They stop fighting.  I pick up my toddler and put him on my hip.  Umph, he's getting big.  I can actually feel his weight in my arms and wonder how much longer before I can't pick him up anymore.  I gave that up with the older kids years ago.  I miss it.

I tell everyone to put a finger on the return key, the magic black button that sends the book out into the world.

"Push," I tell them.

And it's gone.  It's not our book anymore.  It's everyone else's.