Glad To Be Alive

Happens all the time on Twitter, right? We casual people post a question aimed at one of the many celebrities/authors/artists we follow, but never really expect an answer.

But then...



...

He freaking answered.

Stephen King (the man who wrote Carrie, The Shining, It, The Stand, Cell, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, Lisey's Story, Misery, and a bunch of other novels that have made him a household name and one of the world's - if not the world's - most successful and well-known authors, and my personal favorite) answered me (me, the author of just one book) on Twitter.

That was over twenty days ago and I still get chills when I look back.

Where I was going with this was not the celebratory shivers I got upon King answering my tweet, but in how he celebrates a new novel being released: a hamburger, and feeling glad to be alive.

Tomorrow, Monday, June 30, will be the day when my first novel, Seeing, is released. Just about fifteen hours from right now. That knowledge brings along a whole new kind of shivers.

For four years I've struggled and clawed my way to this point. In the fall of 2010 I wrote a simple story that was more about believing in something than it was about the supernatural. There are no witches, no wizards in my book. No Chosen Ones; no one leading a rebellion to save the last vestiges of humanity. The world of YA (Young Adult) books is on fire with these types of explosive tales. But that wasn't the route I wanted to travel. My story is simply about a boy; a boy who is looking for hope. And he's doing it in our modern world.

I want to personally thank all of those at Winter Goose Publishing. They believed in my story. They gave me a beautiful cover. And they gave me a chance.

Tomorrow isn't just my book birthday though; it's also the start of a new beginning. My wife and I will be packing up all the boxes and furniture in our apartment (a place we've had since we were married three years ago) and moving into our first house - three months before our daughter will be born in October. Lots of changes and exciting things coming.

So, if I can take a moment and respond to Stephen King (and I have to do it here because my response will exceed the 140 character limit on Twitter), I want to say that on the day of my book coming out (tomorrow) I probably won't be sitting down to enjoy a hamburger - more likely I'll be running around with moving boxes in hand and a slice of pizza hanging out of my mouth - but I'll definitely be feeling glad to be alive.