I can’t decide if time is passing very quickly, or very slowly. On the one hand, it seems incredible to me that we’re almost at the end of January, when New Year’s seemed like yesterday. (That can happen when you spend a full 1/4 of a month on painkillers, I guess.) On the other hand, it’s shocking to me that my book still doesn’t come out until June. That’s five months!! How will I survive it??

Short answer: there’s always work to be done. People are starting to read the book, and I’m getting really excited. The best way to keep from hyperventilating on a day-to-day basis is to work on essays, do my job, keep chipping away at the new book that is waiting for me to return to it, full force.

Since we’re on the topic, please take a look at my updated website! You can find a bunch of ways to pre-order the book (more are still to come!), and guys, CHECK OUT THOSE BLURBS. I’m so grateful for all the incredible early feedback on this novel, and when I say “so grateful” I mean “occasionally curling up in a ball and weeping with gratitude.” It doesn’t sound very dignified, but oh well. History can turn me into some kind of ice queen if it needs to, but for now I’m a soft animal, very desirous and alive.

AWP is coming in a couple of months, and I’m looking forward to all the people I will hug there, all the hours I will spend wandering through the book fair, pretending to be invisible. This weekend, I (probably ill-advisedly, due to how cold it’s been) planted some indoor seed starts in preparation for my garden, and today I saw the first amniotic shoot beginning to peek up through the soil.

Spring is coming. Spring is almost here.