“To think of gratitude and to think of thank you cards instead, the small panic of them, the pressure to buy the ones with black and white Parisian photograph covers and the blank insides, ready for your profound message, you writer, you beautiful liar; you are supposed to be good at this. So you write, Thank you for the flowers. I don’t know what to call them, but they are pink and I plan on taking them to bed with me in your absence. You write, Thank you for the reminder you’re eight hundred miles away. You draw pictures of hot air balloons and trolley cars and inaccurate maps of the United States with dash dashed arrow routes that point from one stick person holding flowers to another stick person empty handed. And when it is too hard to be thankful for anything other than the fact that at least the two of you aren’t dead yet, you call, despite the time zone difference and impossible hour, to say, Walk west so that I can hear your footsteps better.”
—“Gratitude,” Leigh Stein
“Often, we get pulled in to the thrills of life and forget our responsibilities. We get so intrigued with "having fun" that we forget to be thankful and grateful to God for giving us all that we have, for protecting us from the hardships faced by others around the world. Take a minute while you're out there enjoying life today, and remember those struggling, regardless of how big or small their struggle. We all face ups and downs in life, and God never burdens us beyond our scope, but that doesn't mean we aren't challenged. Rather, it means that we are given opportunities to grow and become better, to get closer to God through worship, remembrance, and seeking His Help, and to find internal peace in our personal journeys so we can have the strength and determination to spread peace to every soul we touch.”
—Nadir Keval
Dear Birthmoms:
Whether or not you believe Mother’s Day applies to you, I want to thank you for choosing adoption and for making this day a possibility for someone else.
I had the privilege of breakfast on the fancy china and excited chatter with my best girl this morning because someone chose me to be her mom. Mother’s Day is possible for me only because of the selflessness of a woman like you.
Words are inadequate, but still - Thank you.
9 AM (Warning - LONG)
So, at 8:50 this morning I’m sitting in front of my laptop and opening windows in my browser and watching a timer count down in one tab and jumping to another, and checking the draft of a tumblr post here, and making sure that Tweetbot is up and running, and I’m thinking…
…not much, honestly, because I just don’t know what to think. Rick, Eric, and I have been working on Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether for almost two years, now, and in a lot of ways, it’s all coming down to what will happen at 9:01. We’re asking for a fair chunk of change at first blush, $27,500, and even though we’ve accounted for every penny as best as we can, even though that’s our break-even, it’s still TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
I mean, if I had that money to throw around, I’d print the damn thing myself, right?
Reward tiers, are we asking too much? Do people want bookplates? Why in the world would anyone pay $100 for Brian Bendis to personalize a book he didn’t write? Who in their right mind would pay $600 to be the Bad Guy in Book Two? Should we even have considered foil-stamping on the cloth case?
And now it’s 9am, and I hit the “launch” button on the Kickstarter page - it even has a little rocket on it, God love ‘em - and…
…it knocks me to a verification page. Not a “You’re launched!” Nope, instead, it’s a page that says, “Are you SURE you want to do this because you CANNOT go back once you do and seriously, have you really thought this through because we know, we know there are folks out there who’ve reached their goal and they just don’t deliver, and if you’re one of those, well, let’s just say it’s on you, buddy, and oh, did you double-check your video, because hate to say it but you’ve got little in the way of hair up top and that light kick off your scalp baldy, that can be distracting, and we just want to be CERTAIN that you’re CERTAIN you want to do this.”
Click click click click panic click click click…
And we’re off to the races.
And at roughly five pm Pacific time, less than 8 hours after we’ve launched (with the little rocket icon!), we’ve funded.
Less. Than. Eight. Hours.
Funded.
We’re into the stretch goal territory, now, this is Terra Incognita for us. This was pie-in-the-sky territory, and I just spent an hour on the phone with Eric going over all the pricing on each of the stretches we’d considered, half-laughingly, the ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we could’ things.
That first stretch goal? It’s already been met. We’ll be posting about it tomorrow.
The second one? It’s out of reach right now, but it’s bloody well in sight, I mean… we could actually DO it….
It’s 10:30 my time, now, and I’m exhausted. Emotionally, physically exhausted. One of my best friends in the world is celebrating his birthday today, and I’m going to call him in a couple of minutes, because it’s the first chance I’ve had to pick up the phone today. I’m going to wish him every joy for this year, and I’m going to laugh and celebrate with him from a distance.
And I’m going to think about how quickly things can change, and how wonderful people can be, and how absolutely, utterly fortunate I am to live the life I have, to share these stories with so many people. I’m going to be very, very grateful for a life that allows me to spin tales that people actually will spend their hard-earned cash to read. Grateful for the incredibly talented men and women I continue to collaborate with. Grateful for peers and fans and strangers who have supported me, and Rick, and Eric, and others I know and love.
It’s been one hell of a day.
Thank you for making it so.
Here’s a link to the Lady Sabre Kickstarter. But I suspect most of you have already been there.
Hold fast.
