Last night after work, I took my son over to his grandmother’s house for the night while my wife and daughter stayed home. Knowing I had been to Chapters earlier in the week to drop my books off, I wondered, “Is it on the shelf yet?”.
I took a quick trip over to Dieppe, parked the car, and went inside the city’s largest bookstore.
The local section is just to the right of the door. In fact, I had spent a lot of time in and out of Chapters and this section in particular when researching aspects of my book. I had often dreamed of what it would feel like should the day ever come when I would see my own book on the shelf.
Staring at the shelf, my eyes are scanning book at a time looking for either the cover or a greenish blue spine that has a familiar title. Back and forth I go as I am trying to find this and I can feel the disappointment rising in me. But before I turned my back and walked away, I spotted a cracked little font on three little books sitting side by side. I immediately pulled one out and saw a familiar title in my hand.
In that moment, I can become a “published author”. Someone who actually made a book and put it on store shelves.
Filled with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, I then turned to my left to see a table filled with stacks of books from local authors. Stepping over a bit closer, I grinned as I found myself staring back at me from the table.
There was a large stack of books, in the middle of the table, all that had previously been sitting in a Sobey’s bag back in my office waiting to be delivered to Chapter’s. I picked up one, and then pushed a few of the others aside just to see how many were there. There was quite a stack waiting to be purchased by someone.
As you can obviously tell, I took a couple of photos of these to mark this personal milestone. But then I put the phone back in my pocket and it hit me. There were no tears rolling down my face but there was definitely a lump in my throat. I had to take a moment to collect myself as I was feeling pretty emotional about the whole thing. I’ve done a lot of things in my life but this is the first time I’ve ever had a book I wrote sitting on the shelves of a bookstore, waiting to be read by some stranger.
I’ve written countless things over the course of the last 30 years, but this was really a first for me.
I sent texts of the photos to my wife as I was beaming from the aisles of the bookstore. She replied back with an exuberant “That is freaking awesome!!!”. No dear, you are. You’ll never know how much your support helps.
After writing short stories as a teenager, music and comic articles as a college kid, countless personal blog entries, tech articles for a local newspaper, geocaching stories for a caching blog, and even countless training manuals for work, I’m finally able to celebrate seeing my writing truly out in the public.
January 31st, 2020 is a day I am never going to forget.
