I’m truly honored to be a finalist in this year’s CAL awards for my book, Gods of the Bay. The event, which is being held on the 17th of July, still feels a little overwhelming to me. Initially, I had no idea I was a finalist until I received an email regarding finalist stickers for our books. I almost responded to other party telling them that I thought I might have been copied on the email by accident. It was only when I spoke on the phone with the gracious president of CAL, Barb Lundy, that I believed the news. Luckily, my day job has prepared me to be flexible and go with the flow when things go awry—which seems to be par for the course for anything having to do with me. Either way I was, and still am, ecstatic.
One of the things that I didn’t realize was required of me as a finalist is doing a reading of my book. Normally, that wouldn’t cause me concern because I’ve done them before at conventions. However, this reading had to be recorded and would be uploaded to CAL’s YouTube channel. To say that I don’t like being on camera is an understatement. So of course, I did the worst thing I could possibly do, which was to put off the project for a few weeks.
Usually when I have a deadline, I’m finished well in advance. In this case, I have to admit that after procrastinating, stressing out, and overthinking everything, I wasted a vast amount of time that could have been spent on more constructive things such as completing my next novel. (I’m happy to note that I did complete it and I’m ten thousand words into the next one). After several takes, think in the double digits, which included interruptions by my daughter and the cats, I finally became comfortable enough not to stumble over too many words during the reading.
You can find the final result here or on my YouTube channel. If you do watch the video, please be kind and keep in mind that I’m not a model or actor.