Jennifer Lauck's new memoir, Found (Seal Press, March 2011)  is available for pre-order on Amazon.  She is the New York Times Bestselling author of Blackbird, Still Waters, and Show Me the Way.  Follow her musings each week as she stares down her pub date, creatively engages the community, and embarks on the quest to spread the word.

Nine a.m., the ring of the bell comes and there is the stomp, stomp of boots across the front porch. I know before I open the door, before I squint against the morning sun that shines on bare branched trees, and before I wave at the UPS man for the delivery, this is it. Found is finally here!

I snap the envelope up from its place under the front mat, rip the bubble package open and out it tumbles.

There is no moment like this moment, when the first copy of a book arrives in the mail--in hard cover.  It is as sweet as a first kiss.

Closing the door, I wander back into my quiet house. Walls, ceiling, windows and floor are witnesses. Spencer is gone to school, Jo too and isn't that the way it should be? Aren't some "firsts" best savored alone?

I ease to the edge of the sofa, the morning sun spills over the rug and I move my hand over the glossy cover that reads Found.

How many titles did I go through to get to this one? 1) Gone Home, 2) My Name is Tara, 3) Bye Bye Blackbird and then 4) With New Eyes, but all the way up to the sale to Seal Press in September 2010, I had no idea what to call this "true sequel" to Blackbird. In fact, I didn’t even know if could include “true sequel” in the title because technically my second book,  Still Waters, had been the true sequel (according to Simon & Schuster). While Still Waters was a fine book and a continuation of the story, it was never the end. It certainly wasn’t a "satisfying sequel" as it had been billed by Publisher’s Weekly. Still Waters had been a “pressure write,” which means “a way to capitalize on the success of a first book by producing another in a short time frame.” This formula, so often tried by those in publishing and in movie making and in music, sometimes bombs. In my case—with Still Waters releasing on 9/11--my follow up was a total bomb.

When I finished Found, six years later, I knew I finally had my true sequel. Miraculously this is how Seal saw this book too and we all agreed we had our subtitle. Out of the blue, at the 11th hour, I suggested Found as the title. I don’t know how it came out. I suppose I was thinking about my friend Cheryl Strayed, who has a new memoir with Knopf (which releases next year) and it’s titled Wild. I liked the one word title and lo’ we discovered there was a chapter—in the book—titled simply Found.

As I open the cover of the “fresh off the press” Found, that crack of the spine calls out "new book" and the smell of paper rises. Fresh clean paper. 

I read the first chapter, as if I don't know the words by heart....

I. When I Was Born
I was given the perfect name, although it would take the better part of forty-six years to puzzle this perfection out...

There is something so new about the words on the page, I begin to doubt I was the person who worked so very hard to make each one carry the exact weight needed to hold the entire story in balance. It's surreal. What once seemed so hard, the writing process which lasted nearly two years, and then the titling process, which took additional, now seems like a long ago dream.  

Before I leave the house, I design a little slip of paper that reads: "1,000,000 copies sold" and then, with tiny bits of tape, affix the paper in place on the cover. Every accomplishment ever achieved began with a goal and so, I set mine.  I intend to sell one million copies in hardcover. HA HA! 

I tuck Found into my purse, like a secret, knowing I will reach in to touch it again and again throughout the day.  I am one more day closer to release!  18 days left to go. 

Sister Writer:  What goals do you set for your own writing and for publishing?  How do you go about achieving them? 

Jennifer Lauck lives in Portland, Oregon with her two kids, thirteen-year-old Spencer and eight-year-old Josephine. She mentors, teaches memoir writing and is just wrapping her MFA with Pacific Lutheran University. 

Connect with Jennifer at her SW profile page, via Twitter , or Facebook.