Somewhere between the blitz of pie, family, and football of the long Thanksgiving weekend, I hit a wall. Writing my weekly blog post—something I usually look forward to—felt like an insurmountable task. And though the months bringing us to year’s end have flown by, suddenly the weeks until Christmas stretch long before me.
2016, you see, is meant to be my year. Easily the two biggest events of my adult life thus far—the publication of my first novel and my wedding—are respectively slated for February 23rd and August 20th of 2016. With all of that coming at me, I’m gearing up, trying to prepare myself for changes that might not be entirely possible to prepare oneself for. I go back and forth between a heady mix of joy and adrenaline and a giddy nervousness that I will somehow muck it all up.
Fortunately my fiancé and I have hired a miraculous woman named Michelle to help us plan the wedding. But the bigness of such a step still looms. I temper the anxiety by remembering that at the end, I’ll be a married to my beloved, so even if my dress gets drenched in red wine, an uncle makes an inappropriate toast, and someone’s underage cousin gets drunk and pukes on the dancefloor, it will all turn out alright.
The book release—happening in February—is in the foreground and God knows what state I’d be in if I didn’t have so many other distractions (including a busy full-time job). It’s a great advantage to me that I’ve worked in books all these years, but knowing everything that I could be doing to support the book creates a constant thrum in the back of my mind that I’m not doing enough. There’s an ambient fear that I am letting my moment pass me by, that just when the crucial bend in the road appears, I’ll find myself asleep at the wheel.
Does it sound like I’m complaining? I don’t mean to. There are many days I wake up overcome by the good fortune that’s befallen me. But good stress is still stress. The closer you get to what you want, the higher the stakes become.
Underneath the noise there is this: all my life the one thing I’ve been sure of is that I wanted to be a novelist. And now there is something else I’m sure of—or someone rather—and he’ll be beside me every step of the way.