The Author Has Landed

I'm now in Seattle for the book launch of Kimberly Derting's Body Finder. What a trip! (and by that, I mean both the literal and figurative meaning!)

It's crazy how I got here. Figuratively. Literally, I came on an airplane. That's not too crazy. Except the flight was nine hours and NO FOOD was available. Coke, yes. Food, no. THAT is crazy!

But I digress.

The point of this is, why in the world did I travel across the entire distance of the continental US to be here for a book signing of someone I don't even know??

Good question. One for which I only have a hazy answer, which goes back to how I "met" Kim, which was surpisingly not how I've met any other blogger.

Kim is next door neighbors with a very close friend of mine. Two Christmases ago, standing at the White House Christmas tree snapping photos in the bitter cold, my friend casually mentioned to me that she had another friend who had written a book and gotten an agent and a contract. At the time I was just finished with Some Kind of Normal and getting entrenched in the search for an agent. So I meandered my bloggy self over to Kim's blog to read about her getting "the call," and got sucked into her entertaining writing. I wrote her. She wrote back. We became blogging buddies, but with a personal connection.

So when her big day came, I made the rash decision to fly out. There's a book launch book signing at Borders! There's a book launch party at a restaurant for her 70 closest friends! There's a neighborhood dinner tonight with a few people who I've gotten to know over the blogosphere, but haven't met in person.

To say that being among a bunch of people I've never met in person is freaking me out a bit is an understatement. This is way out of my comfort zone. I didn't even bring my husband, who is clearly my socially better half. But here I am, and I can't wait!

I'm sure there will be pictures to come. Because what's a good book launch without the paparrazzi? :)