Waiting for stuff has always been a challenge for me. I want it now, whether it’s the cover art for my upcoming book, TANKBORN (which my editor has teased me with), or the new graphics for my website update, or the ARC (Advance Reader Copy) for TANKBORN going out to reviewers. Getting those first reviews is kind of a love/hate thing, but I’m still looking forward to it. Then there’s the release date itself, for TANKBORN, WOLF MARK, and GALAXY GAMES, Tu Books’s launch books. Will that day ever get here? Surely the calendar is stretching and Fall 2011 will arrive a few months later than usual.
I’ve published 17 books. You’d think I’d be used to waiting for stuff like this. But I’m not. After an author has finished writing a book, it almost always take months and months for the book to come out. In the case of TANKBORN, it will be nearly a year between when I sold it and when it shows up in the bookstores (or on Amazon). Longer than I had to wait for my granddaughter, and that delay was torture.
Sometimes I wish I could hop into a time machine and zap myself into the future. Watch my book flying off the shelf, becoming a world-wide bestseller. Hey, if I’m going to imagine a time machine, I might as well imagine a fabulous future.
Speaking of time machines (or rather what I might use them for), here’s my cool science story of the day. Just announced, the discovery of Eodromaeus (dawn runner), a meat-eater the size of a 7-year-old kid that weighs about what a house cat does. What’s interesting is that it looks a lot like another dino called Eoraptor, which is a plant-eater.
So imagine climbing into that time machine and traveling back 230 million years ago. You confront this kinda cute waist-high fella somewhere in what is now Argentina. Is it Eoraptor or Eodromaeus? You pull up some grass to offer to the little guy to eat. Will he nibble that grass out of your hand? Or will he chomp your hand right off?
Heh. I guess it would be better to stay out of the time machine.