The awkwardness of starting a new blog (or a new notebook or journal or story or… I should stop there or I'll start to depress myself) is in trying to determine just how to start.
Thankfully, I think I've got a nice piece of synergy. For my first post, I'll talk about the first review of Before I Wake. This'll seem pretty famililar for those of you who have been reading my livejournal. (And if you haven't read my livejournal, and what you see on this site piques your interest, you're more than welcome to check it out: http://willietheshakes.livejournal.com/ ).
Reading the first review of Before I Wake was one of the highlights of a very eventful, very positive weekend at BookExpo Canada last month.
Upon leaving my author breakfast presentation and going up to the trade show, the first thing I saw was my editor reading the brand-spanking-new issue of Quill & Quire. I found myself suddenly short of breath. I knew the review was coming. I had heard that it was going to be a double-size review. I knew that it was going to be in the Q&Q that would be making its debut at BEC. What I didn't know was what it SAID.
A little background – Q&Q is the industry magazine for the publishing trade in Canada. They run articles of interest to booksellers, librarians, publishers, agents, and the like. They can be quite merciless — but always fair — in their reviewing. Each review is short (300 words or so, for a regular review), so impressions and opinions are distilled, potent. They have something of a reputation for this mercilessness — I've had many despairing conversations with writers about the pummelling they took in Quill. I say this recognizing that I am part of the 'problem', not the solution — given the number of reviews I write/have written for Quill, some of that mercilessness is mine.
So all of this — the uncertainty about the review's content, Q&Q's rep, enemies I might (hah!) have made over the years, my inherent lack of self-confidence — combined to take my breath away. Then my editor lowered the magazine, met my eye, and nodded. The feeling came back in my head, I could breath again, and I spent a few minutes reading the (Featured! Full page!) review.
I was thrilled with it. Every debut novelist wishes to have a first review like the one in Quill. I'm reasonably sure — see the above reasoning — that I'll receive my fair share of critical pummelling in the coming months, but having this one so positive was both thrilling and a relief. And it added to the thrill and magic that was my weekend at BEC.
So, during a routine google self-survey today (narcissistic? Perhaps.) I stumbled across the on-line version of the review. I'm going to link to it, but I have a significant caveat: if you haven't read the book, please don't read the review. I say this not in hope of separating you from your hard-earned dollars before you learn that the book is crap (the review IS positive, I promise), but because there are several SIGNIFICANT spoilers over the course of the piece. SIGNIFICANT. So, seriously, avoid the spoilers. Please.
Those of you who have read the book, though:
http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=5134
(You can see why I like it, right?)
Thanks to Patrick LeBœuf for the book analogy. ,