We did it. We released my book in PDF. What a relief!

My husband was up until 3:00 in the morning for three nights running, formatting it. He's a night owl, anyway, but this is the first time in fifteen years I've ever seen him fall asleep against his will. We were staggering around the house that last day, around piles of print-outs of the cover and logo from last weekend, past plates we'd eaten off without seeing and set down any old place, putting off our son's enthusiastic descriptions of Rube Goldberg machines "for just one more day," our hair on end and our eyes bugging out and expressions like I imagine on the faces of people watching a tsunami coming their way.

I'd dreamed the night before about the most out-of-control times of my life, old boyfriends showing up unexpectedly, fights, wandering endless cities looking for my husband and son.

"I've been thinking," I said dispiritedly to my husband about an hour before the release. "I really don't think we should publish this."

And then finally it was time--we called our son down from where he was playing in his room to be with us when we posted the announcement with the preview and buy-button. It was for sale.

Then we had a party that night, just the three of us.

Now that it's done, was it worth it to self-publish? Do I wish now I'd gone the regular route, through an agent and traditional publisher? Am I sorry I went renegade?

No. I can honestly say I do not. The last time I had a book published--Children and the Internet: A Zen Guide for Parents and Educators, Prentice Hall--I hardly even noticed the release date. It felt like it had almost nothing to do with me. My part had been over months earlier, and the only thing left to do was appear at whatever book signings Prentice Hall had scheduled for me. I did, that was fun, and the publisher took it from there. It was the 1990s. We didn't have the kind of in-depth involvement in the promotion of our books then that authors like Sandra and Sonya do now.

This time, publishing my book felt like something. It felt like something vivid, tangible, infuriating, devastating, unbelievable. It really was like getting married.

So what happens now?

Well, my book is still only in e-version, so we'll be releasing it in POD in the next few weeks (update 12/4/10: um, maybe not). And we're in time to join the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and send it with them to their booth at Book Expo America 2010. We'll send it with them to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, too, very possibly the American Librarian Association, and definitely the London Book Fair next spring. And enter it in the IBPA awards.

I'm the featured guest poster today on Susan Johnston's Urban Muse, one of Writer's Digest's 101 best websites for writers. And I've been interviewing people like five-time O. Henry Award winner and biographer of both Jane and Paul Bowles, Millicent Dillon; literary agent Donald Maass and his wife, the independent editor Lisa Rector-Maass; and the hilarious and profane super-blogger, the Bloggess. All of those interviews will go up on my blog this coming month. (I'm also hoping to interview Lucia Orth, author of the critically-acclaimed Baby Jesus Pawn Shop, if she can fit it into her schedule--keep your fingers crossed.)

I won't be traveling for readings yet. I have a twelve-year-old who's never had to stay home without me overnight before, so those will have to wait until next year, when I can start presenting at writer's workshops, as well. I held off this long on re-starting my writing career until he was old enough. I can wait a little longer.

Because, you know, after all the excitement, it turns out it's still about priorities.

What do I want out of my life? When I'm at that final doorway, just about to walk through, what do I want to be able to look back on?

I want to see the faces of the ones I love. I want to see a life lived in compassion, embraced in all its complexity and inanity and heartbreak and wildness and glory. I want to see this thing I have cared about so passionately, the love that is a part of my identity, the fuel that kept me going when everything else fell away.

I want to see the art and craft of fiction.