So this has been a very odd week or so.

Last Monday, at around 11 PM, we finally published the extremely silly non-book advertisement “A Sexual Experience,” something my friends and I have had in the works for about two months now. I wrote the script, Galen Dara made the wonderful cover, my wife made the prop book when my arts and crafts skills continued to fail to exist, my friend Jake Sam did the filming and the amazing editing job, Josh Brewster did the lighting, and my friend Jameson bought roses in the middle of the day, did legwork and handiwork, and cooked sausages. It was fun to film, and I am, bizarrely, quite proud of it.

Then it went and got retweeted by Neil Gaiman, John Scalzi, Warren Ellis, and others, and it went from 75 views in one day to 1,300. It hasn’t hit those numbers since, but it’s been getting a nice turnover.

Then I went off to New York for the Edgars. Wednesday I had lunch with the great Nick Kaufmann, whose brilliant idea for an Existentialist Choose Your Own Adventure book must happen or I will HAUNT HIM. Then Thursday I had lunch with my editor, Tom Bouman, my publicist, Ellen Wright, and Rose Fox from PW. It was a great chat, and I’m looking forward to going back again some day.

Then I got glammed up for the Edgars. I aired out my tuxedo, which I hadn’t worn since I was 18, and my wife and I headed downstairs.

And this happened.

This is a photo of me failing to make a good speech because I did not expect to win because it was enough that the MWA made the gesture of nominating what I thought to be a silly little sci fi novel. I thought I’d show up, wear nice clothes, get fed, clap for some extremely famous people, and go home. I had a bunch of speeches in my head – about four – and they all seemed like they’d be easy to make, provided I did not win. But then I did, and they all suddenly seemed very hard. I failed to thank anyone specifically, since names suddenly seemed very very hard, so I just said THANK YOU very loud and sort of wobbled off the stage.

So this is a photo of me later still not believing this happened.

I met a lot of folks I never would have expected to – Michael Dirda, Martha Grimes, and I saw Maureen Johnson and Sarah Weinman from afar – and then I happened to see a tweet from Neil Gaiman about how he was putting on his tails, and upon seeing him and walking up to him in the lobby before the awards, he looked at me and said, “Hello, I retweeted you, didn’t it?”

So it comes full circle.

We had a very nice, normal conversation. Later, at the after-awards reception, I hoped to get a photo with him holding a sign saying SORRY LEE because I lost my mom’s anniversary edition of Good Omens and she’s still pretty mad about that. But unfortunately I missed him, but I think my mom is pretty happy anyways.

EDIT: this post about my reactions is 100% true.