The day after Shipping Day is generally a jellyfish day. I drift in the tides of the day without much ability to direct myself or get things done. I did jellyfish last night, and I slept late this morning. But then the contractor showed up to finish some odds and ends. This caused me to dash upstairs and put on some clothes. Then the doorbell rang and it was a Fed Ex delivery of the XDM advance copies. This means that we’ve begun the headlong run of XDM promotion, pre-order, and shipping. There will also be the negotiation of distribution deals to get the books into stores. All of that will be followed by Worldcon with the announcement of Hugo awards, and Gencon with even more XDM promotion. I will find some quiet spaces in there somewhere, but it does not feel like things will be truly calm again until the kids go back to school late in August.
So instead of jellyfishing, I spent the day crossing things off of my To Do list. It was a long list. I’m not going to get it all done. Whatever I don’t get done today can go onto tomorrows equally long list. At least I already scheduled some social time tomorrow afternoon where I get to go out with a friend and no kids. That space is mine and business cannot encroach. Also I’ll likely be a nicer mother once I’ve had some time away from the children. Children seem to radiate interruptions. I don’t think a single task for today was accomplished without at least one interruption in the process.
Did I mention the XDM books are beautiful? They are beautiful. I’m hoping that sometime today I can sit down and really feel triumphant that I was critical to making it be a book. A feeling of triumph would be good.