You know, I hadn’t known today was Halloween until I ran into a vampire and cat lady at the grocery store. A few hours later, only after a coworker wished me a happy Halloween, did I finally put it together.

God I’m out of touch.

“Any day now.” I have clung to that phrase for the past two weeks. The desire to have the book out and available has gnawed at me for months now. The book is so close that I was expecting to have it all in place yesterday. Twas not to be. I need a cover and my personal website needs to be updated. One last week, I promise. Bear with me through the next four days of work, then the next four are free for book finishing.

It’s good practice, by the way, all this production and time management. A great challenge, too. I feel very macho. I consider myself a business man now, which is novel in its way. All the shows I’ve done, all the sales I’ve made, even making that first kids book; not until now, on the precipice of the second, do I have the notion to treat art like a business. And when I think of it as a business, I liken it to a small cafe. Sure, its not world renown but damned if they don’t make a mean cup of coffee.

This whole adventure also has the tingly metaphorical feeling of finally pulling myself together. For the longest time I have felt as though I was underperforming. That inescapable existential thorn has been stabbing in my side for a long time. With the finishing of this book, though, I have tangible proof that I can rise to the occasion and do good things.

So this is what pride feels like.

Not much time to revel in self satisfaction, no. We have things like promotion to attend to. When not promoting, production on books 3, 4, and 5. Regular schoolin’ and workin’. And, dear god, dating. I’m feeling love starved. Uhg . . . Embarrassing confessions aside, there’s plenty to do.

This has been a great year. Things are happy and hopeful. More Different is a benchmark, and the trend will continue through the future books. Good things. Good smiley things.