First things first: my debut novel is published. Like, for real. The official “birthday” for the eBook was January 1st, 2022. Its nearly identical twin, the paperback, was born the following day. Instead of announcing this joyous occasion to the world, my first instinct was to keep it a secret while I made sure everything was okay. Call me paranoid, but I had so many formatting problems – particularly with the eBook – that I figured it was better to be on the safe side than the “filled with horrific errors” side. I bought a copy of the physical book, and while that was being printed and shipped, I checked out the eBook on the few devices we own. Aside from an odd white border around the eBook cover (which has since been corrected), everything looks good.

So, it’s out there, and now I feel…weird. Not in a bad way. More in an “Okay, now what?” way. I mean, this book has been with me almost my entire adult life – all the way from that little spark of an idea I had over seventeen years ago, while talking to my brother in the parking lot after watching the movie Spider-Man 2. Just hearing how much those characters meant to him, and realizing how much they mean to so many people. The escape they offer. The hope they give.

That little spark led to sticky notes on my wall, which led to a handwritten, 300K–word first draft (three years to write, another two just to type). Once the word processing was complete, I remember feeling pretty smug about my own awesomeness. Then I started to read the book, and actually shed tears over how bad it was. At least, the early part of the book was bad. Towards the middle, when I learned not to describe in detail every time a character blinked or inhaled/exhaled, it got a little better. By the end, the writing was halfway decent but still a far cry from publishable.

I got painful but extremely valuable notes from my mom (who else but a mother would read a 1,500-page, not-so-well-written manuscript?). I revised, cut 100K words, revised again, got more notes from Mom and a few from my newly formed writing group. Sometimes, I’d let the book sit for months or even years as I worked on other projects, strengthening my craft. But I would always come back, cutting, polishing, searching for that diamond I knew was in there. When I finally got it down to 150K, I felt I’d hit a wall. I needed help to break through that last barrier, and found it in an amazing critique partner named Anna, who read the book with her then ten-and-a-half-year-old son and gave me the fresh perspective I so badly needed. Boring scenes, cut. Target age group, decided. Another 57K, gone.

So, yeah, this book has been over seventeen years in the making. But really, I think the story has been with me for even longer.

It might’ve started when I was in seventh grade, standing outside the main office at my junior high school, clutching a folded letter addressed to my band teacher. I paced for a good ten minutes, sweat soaking through my Mickey Mouse t-shirt, before finally darting inside and placing the note in my teacher’s mail cubby. Then I high-tailed it out of there, wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my young life. Wondering if my teacher would believe me about the terrible things some of my classmates were doing to me behind her back – words I had to write, because I couldn’t say them out loud.

Amazingly, she did.

Or, maybe it started even earlier than that, when I was a small child watching X-Men cartoons with my brother in the mornings, then spending the afternoons jumping off the back deck with a garbage bag parachute, chasing the thrill of that gravity-defying moment of lift before the inevitable crash down to earth. Didn’t matter how many times my knees buckled, or my teeth clacked together, or my feet ached from that jarring impact. It was all worth it for that one little second of something more. That one instant when I felt like I was flying, even though such things are not possible in the “real world.”

I wrote this book for that little girl. I wrote it for any kid who’s ever tied a red blanket around his/her/their neck and pretended to be a superhero out fighting the bad guys. I wrote it for all the kids who are standing outside an office right now, holding a letter filled with words they can’t say out loud. And I wrote it for everyone – young, old, or anywhere in between – who believes that inside each ordinary person lies an extraordinary one, just waiting to break free.

I hope you guys love it.

~G