It's a REAL BOOK!

Yesterday, I got a package:


My novel is now a book.

Very excited, of course. I still can't really believe there is a book with my name on it. I'm a writer, I suppose, and I should be able to describe it better. The dust jacket is glossy and covered with that girl who isn't Cassie, but whom some of the guys in my 7th period class liked the look of enough to want to read about. The cover itself is black. I like it. The pages are smooth, but not too smooth, and very white. I like the design, the set-up of the journals, and the weight of it. It's not a slim book--at 400 pages--but not too thick to seem intimidating, I think.

I'm NOT let down, but since I have been waiting so long and with such trepidation, maybe I am more relieved than ecstatic.

The thing that really energized me was how excited that 7th period class was when I told them about Or Not yesterday (just before I found out it had arrived!) Then when I passed it around today, it was simply very cool.

I warned them that it might be too mature for some of them, lol, and expressed my horror of the thought of them going home and telling their parents that their English teacher had written a book with lots of bad words in it, and they had to get it. (I told them how Robin Brande, in Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature will say something like, "he called him a male body part," while I just write what people actually say. I do think Mom and Dad, as well as some kids, won't appreciate me calling a dick a dick, so . . . I guess we'll see soon enough what sort of a reaction I get. :/ :D)

Scary and fun.