A book birthday, a contest winner, and a lot of gratitude

Throughout the weekend, people sent photos of my book on the shelves at WalMarts around the nation.

This morning I've been getting messages from people letting me know Making Waves has downloaded to their Kindles.

It's been out for a couple weeks in Barnes & Noble and Powell's and Amazon, so I guess it's official – Making Waves has released.

If anyone had told me a year ago how chaotic life would be in the days surrounding the release of my debut novel, I might have called my agent and asked if we could trade the book contract for something more relaxing. Electrified nipple clamps, maybe.

That's not to say I'm not giddy and grateful and delighted beyond words.

But I'm also utterly exhausted.

And while it's fresh in my mind, I'll tell you a few things that are helping me keep my sanity right now. Maybe it'll be helpful to those of you with book releases on the horizon, or maybe it'll help someone facing any sort of crazy stressful schedule.

Forgive yourself
You know how I usually write my blog posts the night before and set them to go up at 2:30 a.m.? You can see from the time on this post that I missed the boat today. I hate that. I also hate staring at the big, glossy alumni magazine from my college with its lovely feature on great summer reads. Making Waves isn't on the list, not because they hate me, but because I neglected to tell them about it. I forgot.

You know what? It's not the end of the world. The late blog posts, the missed PR opportunities, the deadlines that have blown past no matter how many late nights and early mornings I've put in these past few weeks. My writing career won't be made or lost based on things like this, and I have to remind myself of that constantly.

My Making Waves pose on Paulina Lake.

Give yourself a break
I had planned to devote my weekend to tackling edits and blog posts and some of the promo tasks sent to me by the amazing publicist at Sourcebooks. Then a friend called. "We're thinking of taking the boat up to Paulina Lake for the afternoon. Want to come?"

The answer to that question should always be YES! Even when you're busy. Especially when you're busy. Your brain can only produce so much, and then it becomes a puddle of cereal mush at the bottom of the garbage disposal. You need mental health breaks. You need a change of scenery. You need to be in the company of friends and loved ones and beautiful things that make you happy and keep you refreshed.

Besides, how cool is this photo of my feet in a semi-sorta reenactment of my book cover?

Let other people help you
I'm not good at accepting help that's offered, and I'm really not good at asking for help in the first place, but I did both this past weekend, and I've gotta tell you – it feels amazing.

My dad spits cherry pits to pick a contest winner.

I love to cook. It's one of my favorite hobbies, but even hobbies can feel overwhelming when you're stressed. When a text message showed up yesterday afternoon that began, "I'm bringing dinner tonight," I literally bawled with gratitude.

And since I was on a roll with the help thing, I called my parents and asked if they'd be willing to go through all the entries in last week's blog contest and address the envelopes to everyone who earned a signed envelope. Not only did they jump right on that task, they offered to pick the winner who will receive the added bonus of a signed copy of Making Waves, along with an advance reading copy of Believe it or Not when it becomes available.

Their selection process involved writing all the entrants' names on a sheet of paper and spitting cherry pits at it. A brilliant solution, so congratulations to Ara Grigorian (who actually wrote a lovely review of Making Waves just last week). Send me your snail mail address and I'll hook you up with your prize).

Thanks so much to all of you who've read the blog, entered the contests, read the book, and posted glowing reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and all over the blogosphere. I am eternally grateful for all the support and kind words you've showered on me through this challenging and thrilling time in my life.

You rock so hard you make me seasick.