I don’t know about y’all, but 2016 was what I imagine being a meteorologist during a particularly bad hurricane season feels like. Category 5’s everywhere, crazy spaghetti tracking models, standing outside on a beach with rain pelting our slickers sideways and an ocean behind us where every wave has a face. An angry face. A face with foaming jaws cracked open and ready to chew.

Yeah. Like that.

But, there were good things, too. Like those fried green tomatoes at Willy Taco in Greenville, SC. Like watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with my kids at the theater where absolutely zero cell phones went off. Like getting a thoughtful letter in the actual mail from a dear, dear friend. Like lighting my grill on a sunny spring afternoon.

Oh, and I published a book.

A book! My first book! Which, by the way, is titled When She Was Bad and is available on Amazon here and from my wonderful publisher, Press 53, here.

So, yes. My very first book of poetry was published in October, and it has been a bright point in my life. Everything from the notification from the publisher, Kevin Morgan Watson, to editing proofs, to requesting and receiving blurbs, to working on the cover, to signing preorders, to the book launch on October 4th at Starlight Cafe in Greenville, NC, to all of the readings since the launch; everything has been wonderful, and I have been amazed by the things that can happen.

Here are 5 things I have learned:

The model in the photo that you and your publisher love and chose for your book cover could back out. You could need to come up with something else, quick. You could meet up with the fabulous photographer Dawn Surrat and spend a fun afternoon in an evening gown posing with her collection of insects and animal bones. You could end up with a cover you love even more, and a back cover even, and a new friend.

Be open to change.

You could be nervous as hell about sending out requests for blurbs to poets you respect and admire. You could send the requests anyway. They could agree to write the blurbs. They could send you their blurbs that say things that make you cry. In a good way.

Send the requests.

You could have lots of friends who are indifferent to poetry. They might even say they hate poetry. They could come to your reading anyway. They could tell you afterwards that hearing you read your poems out loud changed how they view poetry. They could buy your book. Or not.

Lots of people have never heard poetry read out loud.

Social media friends from high school and junior high and elementary school could buy your book. They could message you to tell you that your book is on their bookshelf in their home in Denver or San Francisco or Baltimore.

Knowing your book is on the bookshelf of someone you haven’t seen since you were eleven is pretty damn cool.

People who hear you read from your book could contact you to come and read at their bookstores, at their book club meetings, at their open mic nights. Famous poets could be at your readings and they could buy and read your book and then send you an email saying how they had “a helluva time” and then analyze one of your favorite poems from the collection that never got published in a journal but you didn’t change it because you love it, dammit.

You never know who will be at your reading.

This book, and the process of the book, has brought me joy. I can’t wait to see what else I learn from this wonderful, slightly crazy thing called writing.