Baby Steps

What you’re seeing is a black swallowtail nursery. Every year, I plant parsley in the bare spots in my garden because the caterpillar forms of the swallowtail butterfly love parsley. They will eat it down to the ground by summer end. Gotta start them off right!

Feeling Lucky is off to a good start too! I must say, though, I am very surprised at how calm the rest of you were over your book launches. I could see that you were excited, but no one mentioned the screaming terror! I spend the day before alternating between fearing the internet would break and imaging every teacher I know red-lining my work. Thankfully I have friends who talked me out of boarding a plane for Ben & Jerry’s and eating the state of Vermont!

Why the big drama? When Molly Herwood first edited my manuscript, she was very thorough. All my students got a good laugh at how thorough! I thought the manuscript was pretty clean until Debby Gilbert also got me feedback a month ago. Then I realized how much I’d added, answering questions that came up over the past 2 years while I was shopping it around. Debby, consummate professional that she is, only blinked a little when I did a last minute hatchet job.

So now I’m wondering how many of those questions over the past 2 years were actually helpful or just someone’s polite way of saying not interested. I’ll have to review my earlier drafts, but for right now, I’m learning my lesson. I kept reading about all the things I could do for marketing, but this time, I’m not adopting every suggestion. Comfortable as I am with marketing, this has been a good reminder to focus on what I can manage instead of everything that’s possible – baby steps out of the nursery!