Monday, November 25, 2013

Guess the name of the next quilt.



This past Tuesday, I woke up to what is becoming a semi-regular event: another diverticulitis attack. I had an appointment to see my gastro back in October, but then we lost David's dad and had to travel to Indiana that week. I finally got around to re-scheduling it and she can see me on... January 27! My entire abdomen may just shut down by that point, but frankly the thought of pooping in a bag the rest of my life doesn't seem so awful as long as the damn pain is gone. I'll just make a cute cover for my colostomy bag out of octopus fabric and rhinestones, and maybe put a little sign on it that says, "Hot Shit" or something.

I tell you this only because I realized on Thursday that I had better get my tushie in gear and start signing and mailing some books. The thing with diverticulitis attacks is that one of the main ways to get through it is to basically stop eating. You can have Jell-O and broth, but that's about it. So, by Thursday, not yet healed enough to eat for the third day in a row, I was a wee bit shaky. Nevertheless, I decided it was an excellent time to start signing books! If you receive your book and are wondering why it looks like I might have been drunk when I was signing yours, now you know I was actually just running on fumes. There may have also been a Vicodin or two involved - I'm not saying.

I also had to try and organize a blog tour for the book. I sent out a whole bunch of requests thinking maybe 5 or 6 people would say yes, and I got 25! I had to split it between December and January, and then send out a schedule to all the people who said they would do it and hope that, once they read the book, they will still be just as enthusiastic. Naturally, I got names misspelled and blog names wrong, and every time I tried to send out a correction, I would stupidly copy and paste the list from an email that still had all the wrong names, so I ended up sending out like 80 emails over three or four days. I'm too scared to go back and see if any of them are even coherent. Naturally, of those 25 only about, oh 5 or 6 have responded to say they are good with their date and are definitely in, so we may be having the tour I originally envisioned after all! (It's cool - I know people are busy.)

Hopefully, on December 2 I'll be telling you all about the first stop on the tour and directing you her way, along with a schedule for the rest of the days. Each person on the tour will be (I hope) giving away a book, so there will be (I hope) 25 chances to win one. I'll post here every day of the tour (I hope - do you sense a theme emerging here?) to tell you a little something about the person who is on the tour for that day, and, if the cramps have all completely subsided by then, it will probably all be nice!

And just a reminder that the pre-order price of $9.99 for a signed copy of the book is good until November 30. On December 2, when the tour starts the price goes up to the list price of $12.99 but there will also be a PDF available for only $5.99. I'll have all the deets ready for you on December 2. We will be in Tennessee this week for Thanksgiving so, if you are of a mind to order one this week, it won't be mailed out until next week.

Oh, and since we have Thanksgiving coming up, I should tell you what I am thankful for, because apparently that's, like, a thing:

1) Double chocolate Milano cookies.
2) Tom Hiddleston.
3) Yoga pants.
4) Secretly reading dirty books on my Kindle.
5) Nice gastroenterologists, even when they are booked up months at a time, dammit.
6) My smart, sarcastic, awesome children.
7) A husband who thinks the fact that I self-published a book is totally hot.
8) Netflix. See #2.
9) Scorpion traps.
10) Friends - ones nearby and those I've really only known over the internet.
11) Family, both the one I was born into and the one I married into.
12) All my awesome readers.


See you in December!!





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