The Weird Way in Which I Celebrate Being a Published Author

Remember at the end of Back to the Future how Marty McFly goes back to his house, and Biff the mean bully is waxing Marty's truck for Marty's big date at the lake, and then Marty's Mom and Dad come in and they are thin and great looking and have been playing tennis, and then just at that moment someone delivers a package and it's Marty's Dad's new book? Marty's Dad, George, is so excited, and they open up the package and it's his first novel,"A Match Made In Space."  (Oh, SPOILER ALERT, that's what happens at the end of Back to the Future.  But wait... there's a problem with Marty's kids!  To be continued!)

That's pretty much exactly how I pictured getting my first batch of my first published novel.  And that's just what it was like!  I'm not sure who traveled back in time to make sure that I was able to beat up the bully and woo my wife, but THANKS!

There was a feeling that there should be a celebration, but not a book release party (although we may do one of those in Portland sometime soon... I'll let you know when we get that figured out).  So last night I did something I've always secretly wanted to do: I grabbed some books I love and forced them to stand on the shelf next to Imaginary Jesus.  And then I took pictures.

Of course this isn't a definitive or exhaustive list, it's just some of my favorite books I could quickly grab off the shelf and rearrange. The beauty is I can now do this every night with a different selection of books.

I also encourage book shelves that look like this:

Now is a good time for you to buy your own copies so you can build a fort, have a stylish door stop, brag to your friends that you are the minion to a published author, give it to your worst enemies in the hopes that they will choke on it, or to read.  It's also available as an audio book, if you think you can bear to hear the luxurious silkiness of the author's voice for several hours straight.