Book Birthday
My book birthday on May 12 was one of the best days of my life, right up there with having my babies and getting married. I didn’t know it would be that big. I didn’t let myself think about how much my dream meant to me, because what if it didn’t come true?
I do a lot of that kind of mental trick with myself, always trying to avoid being crushed by disappointment. Maybe it’s been useful to help me move past disappointments and keep going? I did it when I was infertile before having my girls; I told myself I was fine, maybe I didn’t want kids yet, I’d just enjoy traveling with my husband, and that mostly worked for years. Then one day it stopped working, and I could not rest until I made that dream come true. Literally, I felt like I was in a constant state of agitation and desperation from that point on (something that felt very familiar later when I was querying novels). But even with that desperation, I didn’t let myself fully feel how much I wanted a child. It was only when I first laid eyes on my baby girl and felt this massive joy and relief, like a huge weight lifted from my shoulders, that I realized how much I’d been holding back, how part of me had still been holding my breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
On Tuesday, I realized that’s exactly how my book coming into the world felt. I’ve been actively pursuing this dream for nine years, though it’s always been in the background since I was eight years old, maybe even before that. My great uncle James used to tell a story about me sitting on his lap at age 2 and “reading” him a book. There’s a video of me at age 4 making up the words to a book about Christmas in which I added a lot of crying sound effects for baby Jesus. Maybe I’ve always wanted to do this. Maybe it’s tucked into my DNA somewhere — Kristin is a writer.
When I sat down to make a video the morning my book came out, I held my book in my hands and tried to say how I felt, and suddenly it was REAL. The other shoe had not dropped; my book HAD been born. It was in the world, thousands of copies already winging themselves around to bookshops and people’s homes, and now while it would forever be mine and beloved, like my children, it would also belong to the world and be free to go out and change it.
With the pandemic going on, I missed out on a few things I’d intended to do to celebrate. I wanted to have a party at my local indie bookseller Ernest and Hadley Booksellers and sign books like I’ve been practicing since I learned cursive in third grade. I wanted to go see my book on a shelf. That will have to wait. But my friend Tia Bearden went above and beyond, as she usually does, because being a great friend is one of her many talents and skills. She and my sister Kelly organized a socially distanced surprise book birthday party for me in my backyard. A few of my closest friends stood in a giant ring and shouted across it to each other, and my sister handed out cupcakes and champagne with gloves and tongs. My husband cried, because that’s what he does, and then I cried, because now that’s what I do, too. We are cryers in this house. We are happy, and we are grateful.
Thank you, friends. Thank you, Penguin Teen and Viking Books for Young Readers. Thank you to my editor Maggie Rosenthal and agent Victoria Marini. Thank you, readers and future readers and fellow writers who’ve helped boost my book. Thank you thank you thank you. Thank you, world.
