10 Thing No One Tells You About Publishing Your First Book

1) Once you've finally published a book all those people who asked you, for years, if you've ever been published and whose eyes glazed over when you mumbled something about "screenplay options," will disappear. They will be replaced by people who will tell you their Great Book Idea. It usually involves a dead relative or something they found in their garage. You will listen because it actually is better than what you are working on.
2) You read once about Peg Kehret, a local children's author, saying that you publish, thinking that it will be this seminal moment and you'll pass your own stack of books on the dining room table and life goes on. She's right. But it still feels great.
3) Your husband will accuse you, with a huge smile, of getting "too big for your britches," as you fold laundry and do the dishes. You tell him you're going to bed because being Too Big for My Britches requires a lot of rest. He laughs.
4) Your kids will ask if this means anything for them. Yes, I will say, it means you have to do more housework. They ask for more TV.
5) The dog will try to negotiate another walk into the schedule.
6) Your sister will be exactly the same person who told you, 35 years ago, "I'm not sure you know the difference between fiction and reality." True story. I still don't.
7) Your friends will be super happy and confused because, as usual, you have given them too many weird details.
8) Your relatives will be supportive, thrilled and having more babies. You will lose the ability to keep track of them.
9) That one person who lets their dogs run on your lawn, causing your dog to throw himself at the blinds and break them, making you thunder downstairs and stop writing will call her dogs away, (after one poops) and say "I heard about your book. Congratulations!" You will almost start crying.
10) You will have a lot of fun, for one day and then it's back to work.