City of Night is a book!

Writing spans a spectrum, for me:  it’s serious, it’s joyful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating–and sometimes it’s terrifying.  I spend months with so many words and so many scenes they begin to blend, and once I’ve finished the first draft — and in case I haven’t mentioned it here yet, House Name is finished in first draft — I then have to read, revise, and try to make sure the book I’ve actually written resembles the book I’d hoped to write when I started.

I’ve been through this process dozens of time now, and it results in a book.  I know this.  But…it never really gets old.

Having the book in my hands is what makes it real to me.  Which sounds odd, because the work is real, and it’s what consumes most of my time; taking a copy of a book out of a box takes vastly less time.  But it’s final, then.  The book is a book, it’s arrived.

City of Night, the second in the arc of Jewel’s early life, is a beautiful* hardcover and is now standing beside my computer.  And for a moment — before the usual author worries set in — I’m ecstatic.

* the beautiful in this case in entirely due to the fabulous art of Jody Lee and the design team at DAW.