Let's Make it Official, Kids: Mandatory Release is Here

I spy, with my little eye, A BOX OF BOOKS!

Hi! How are you? I'm a nervous wreck, thanks!

Well, I could whip myself into a neurotic frenzy over the last bottle of discount ranch dressing on double coupon day, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

But I'm distracted, which leads me to do things like wish my husband's late aunt a happy birthday on Facebook. You know how this works. You see the birthdays up there in the corner, and you absently click through them all (Happy birthday, Dave! Have a great day, Eleanor! Enjoy your big day, Steve!), get your daily post-liking frenzy out of the way, and then you whisk your palms together and head off to tackle the day, feeling so accomplished. Just look at everything you've already achieved. Maybe you'll work out. Shave your legs in the shower! Make a home-cooked meal for dinner! And--could it possibly be--actually get some writing done? Oh, the joys! Your day is a rainbow-hued quilt of possibilities sewn with spun gold. One hour later, you get a call from your beloved husband: "You wished my dead aunt happy birthday on Facebook."

Individually-bagged Doritos. I told you I was neurotic.

And you crawl under the couch and die a little and eat an industrial-sized bowl (the bowl you'd give your kid to puke in if he stayed home sick from school and you had a kid) of stale granola with chocolate soy milk and can't stop shivering.

Also, you have a book in the "soft-launch"* phase on Amazon, the book you've been working on for 14 years, the book that people cock an eyebrow over when you explain the plot ("It takes place in a prison? And the main character is a guy in a wheelchair? And it's a really weird love story with a sex scene and everything? But it's HILARIOUS, trust me!") and people are finding it and buying it which is awesome, but you haven't made it official and you're already feeling slimy and spammy as hell for uploading your cover art and linking to blog reviews on Facebook and just want to crawl back under the couch again and where did you leave that spoon, anyway?

So yes, let's just make it official and put me out of my misery. Mandatory Release is now available on all platforms: high and low diving boards, ceremonial award stages, all of them. Also Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble. I'm also giving away two signed paperback copies on Goodreads, if that's your flavor of choice. I love this book, I miss these characters, and there's something in it to offend just about everyone, so let the games begin!

If you'd like to celebrate with me, I'll be doing a reading at Becket's Restaurant in Oshkosh on Tuesday, July 16 from 5-7 pm--it's a fundraiser for the Winnebago County Literacy Council, so we won't get TOO out-of-hand. Unless it's decided by popular vote.

A lovely woman in a book club I met with last week asked me what happens at my launch parties, and here are your multiple-choice options:

a) I sweat through my dress and have trouble remembering the word "orientation."

Gene Simmons? Is that you? (Guy in front: "We're number one!")

b) A bunch of us end the night at the gay bar AND the strip club.

c) Everything I eat gives me diarrhea except cheese and wine, which works out fine because those are my two favorite food groups.

Thanks for reading. If I could buy all of you ponies and peonies, I totally would.

 *Soft-launch is just a fancy way of saying 1) that you've uploaded your book and haven't announced it yet; and 2) you're playing some kind of kinky sex game with a Nerf replica of the space shuttle.