#8: Out of My Hands
The last in a series of eight blogs about my process of publishing every grain of sand.
The book has been printed and it’s out in the world!
I’ve been gleefully fulfilling book orders for the past month, and this week, friends have begun receiving every grain of sand in the mail! I’ve sold about 300 books so far, and I’m feeling unbelievably blessed. My words and stories and poems are out there, in the world, in your hands—and out of mine.
To my friends and family and colleagues and favorite Korean juice shop owner: THANK YOU. Thank you for being so quick to celebrate this moment in my life. Thank you for your posts and shares and calls and texts and emails and pictures of you holding the book. Because of your love and support, this feels like a major success. I have still not left my home—I’m actually sitting in the same seat I was sitting in less than nine months ago when the pandemic began, when I had the realization that with an abundance of free time, I faced a responsibility to the timid writer inside me to finally publish my work.
Launching the book during a pandemic has simultaneously felt like a joyous opening night and an episode of The Twilight Zone. I have been moved to tears by the kindness of the community that rallied behind me—all from the comfort (and confines) of my dining table. Nothing has seemingly changed, and yet everything feels so different. I have shared my story in a way that I was never comfortable doing before. I wrestled for years with formatting and tinkered with rhythms and intricacies in the storytelling, but now it’s done and the ink has dried. I can now hand you a book full of stories and metaphors and images and ideas that came through me into the world with an authentic sense of pride and achievement.
I didn’t move from this seat for nine months.
That’s not true. But you get the idea.
I’m really eager about this next chapter of the process, hearing from readers about what surprised them, what touched them, what confused them, what softened them, what rang true. I am excited to sit down with the book myself and rediscover the characters and experiences that inspired them in the first place.
And soon, I look forward to getting back into a theatre and being a stage manager again, being with my loved ones and hugging them, and wandering the world without a mask on—wearing a big smile, one that comes from the confidence of a satisfied man who made one of his dreams come true.
