Jul 1 2006

The New Book

I just received the first copy of Knights of the Black and White, the  first novel of the Knights Templar Trilogy, from Putnam Books in New York. It’s hot off the press and it won’t be generally available until the official release date of August 8th, but I have it here and I have to admit I’m more than pleased with the way it looks, and that "new baby" feeling of proud parenthood is still alive and well, dwelling within me despite the fact that this is my tenth novel.
There’s something absolutely splendid about setting your eyes and your hands for the first time on a newly publiished book you’ve written, because in the composition and editing stages, which can cumulatively last for months on end, you tend to lose sight of the fact that you are dealing with an actual book, and not just an endless succession of manuscript pages that have been shuffled and re-shuffled and chopped and changed and moved around until the sequence becomes dizzying. It happens to me every time. And then there’s a knock at the door one day when the postman or the courier delivers a fat package and you open it up and there it is, the New Novel! There’s no other experience that I can think of, other than actually having a living baby delivered, that can compare to it for sheer enjoyment, wonderment and a rush of elated satisfaction.
So, it came today and I felt the need to share it.
Jack

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