Last night I finalized the first CD worth of the audio version of Practically Shameless (I expect to get the rest done today) and put it in a CD player.

It was late (10:30), I'd had a tiring day both physically and emotionally (my mother's back in the hospital in Illinois), and I wanted to hear a bit of it only to get that hit of satisfaction before retiring, and I couldn't stop listening!  It sounded great! I listened to the whole CD and can't wait to hear the rest today.

And this is really interesting--it took me about 8 years, all told, to write Practically Shameless. And I was surprised last October that when printed books arrived, it wasn't that huge a moment. I had always imagined this very emotional moment of first holding the book in my hands, and it didn't happen that way, because all the work I had to do immediately kicked in--I had to send out 450 advance copies, 150 review copies, and finish a press release to go with them, to mention just the biggest of the tasks facing me.

But last night, as I listened to the audio version in my kitchen, walking back and forth across my kitchen floor, more of it sank in, that I really did it, that I really and truly finished and published the book.

And what a hoot to hear my voice on a CD!

I wasn't even tired of listening to it, which really surprised me. I recorded the entire book twice (once in October, once in January) and re-recorded portions for a third time last week. Then I edited the files, which meant listening to some paragraphs ten or twenty more times as I tried to get them edited right (removing pauses, etc.).