and when the book is sent, it's time to break out the chocolate frogs & champagne!

Today was the day of final polishing on our manuscript of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind. It's kind of like we're polishing a bike after we've spent months welding & screwing it together. Today is devoted to polishing it so that it's shiny and beautiful.

My co-editor China Martens is adding our final Table of Contents to the document and then will have the honor of pushing "SEND." In the meantime, I get to battle rush hour on the NYC subway system to pick up my daughter from afterschool. I will tell her that we finished the book and send it off and she will be unimpressed.

How do I know this? Because two years ago when copies of my first book arrived, hot off the printing presses, I picked my daughter up from afterschool after buying some coconut milk yogurt. We sat outside the school and I showed her my book. "Do you know what this is?" I asked.

Now my daughter had seen the book cover before. She looked at both mock-ups of the cover spread and helped me choose the flower that was on the spine (rather than the face). She nodded, but was more impressed with the yogurt that she was eating than with the actual physical book.

Hmmm, maybe I should rethink my original plan to take her to Economy Candy to buy chocolate frogs (since my daughter is not even 11 and champagne would probably be inappropriate) to celebrate the sending-off of the manuscript.