Majken Selinder Nilsson Books

A few weeks ago, I was notified by my publisher that my book had been assigned to an editor.  This was also the week my cover was chosen and things felt like they were moving along, so needless to say, I got excited!

I am still excited!  I see how well the other authors with my publisher have done lately, winning awards, getting asked to be on radio shows, getting great numbers on Amazon, and I am so happy for them.  But, I am biting at the bit to get my book out there into the market, too, when I read about all of these happenings, and publishing is just not a fast process.  So, right now, while I want to see if people like my story, if it will go anywhere, it is still sitting in a sort of literary purgatory, awaiting its chance to ascend to greatness or…  well… we won’t go there!  Have I mentioned that patience has never been a virtue of mine?

As the weeks drag out from when my editor was assigned to this point, I have had a lot of time to worry.  I keep telling myself I am surely not the editor’s only author and my book is L-O-N-G.  But, then I wake up in a sweat,  stewing and fretting that perhaps the editor is taking my 500+ page book and whittling it down to 100.  It is like my book is undergoing plastic surgery and I have to wait weeks to see if it is even recognizable when it is finished.  It is really hard to hand it over to someone else, even when that someone is a professional, and trust that it will come out alright; the way I intended!

Now, I have personally done some editing before, though nothing that would be considered terribly exciting to the general public, I suspect.  However, I did learn some very interesting things about organic chemistry and also that apparently, in Polish, there are no articles before words, so I had to type quite a few “a’s” “the’s” and “an’s” in my time. Anyway, I digressed, but the point is that I know the process can take a long time, especially if there is a lot of content.  But, proposals and reports by PhD chemists are not novels, and truthfully, I couldn’t have changed the content in those even if I had wanted to, because, while interesting, a lot of the actual science could have been in Greek for all I understood.  So, while I know that these things take time to do correctly, I am trying to talk myself down and convince myself that the editor has only the best intentions for my baby, but sometimes, irrationality overtakes me and I start to hyperventilate.

But, I still get a thrill by the whole thing when I actually calm down enough to realize that I am one of only 400 authors on whom my publisher has deemed worthy enough to take a chance!  Out of all the submissions they receive, I am one of the 400 they chose!

I know pride is not an attractive attribute, but man, I have to say, those odds make me feel pretty good about what I accomplished!  And, while the initial exuberance from when I first got the news has dwindled a bit as time has lapsed, I have to say, there will still be times when I am driving down the street and remember that I have a novel in production and I do a little happy dance.  Sometimes drivers look at me like I am crazy, and in that moment, it is really hard to not be “That Person” who rolls down their window and signals the other driver to do the same, only to yell into ther car, “Hey!  I just got a book chosen for publication! (or I am getting married!  I got a raise! I have some Grey Poupon! Etc., etc.)”

So, I admit I am getting anxious.  I have waited patiently for several weeks, but I am near the end of my fortitude here.  It is like when you pulled an all-nighter in college to write a paper and you are awaiting the professor’s triumphant march into class with the millions of plastic report covers, so you can see if it was really worth it, mixed with knowing you have to get a root canal: the hope for a favorable end result, while anticipating at least some pain, is the hardest part!

I know it will be worth it in the end.  I know that everyone involved has out collective best interest at heart so that (hopefully) my novel will be profitable.  But, the waiting is killing me!  I am dying here….