Final Stages

 

It’s time to share the disturbing news with my blog readers: I regret to tell you I am now experiencing advanced and possibly final stages of Operation First Novel Finalists Stress Syndrome. I have all five of these classic symptoms:

·         You’re convinced you are stuck in some sort of freaky time warp, since February 16 never seems to get any closer.  At best, the month between the announcement and the conference must be the longest in the history of the world.

·         On the flip side, you don’t really want the 16th to arrive because the longer you’re stuck in this warp, the longer you can indulge in occasional fantasies where you actually walk away with the grand prize.

·         You are already waterlogged, trying to increase your daily water intake in preparation for Mile High City. Altitude sickness is just as fun as it sounds.

·         You’re convinced you are WAY out of your league. You learn you are up against History and English majors and you think “I haven’t graduated from anything since high school, about 150 years ago. This has to be an administrative error. Maybe someone else with my name wrote another book by the same title. Or maybe they needed a token foreigner.”

·         Your new prayer is: “Lord, thank you that you love me too much to allow my novel to be published before it’s ready, or before its author is ready. Thank you that you know when that will be. Hopefully, not posthumously. Amen.”