Publication Days never get old because, unlike Christmas, they don’t show up once a
year, at least for me. More like Leap Years. But I’m always happy when they arrive,
because the story–crafted, edited, revised, tossed in the trash, cursed, retrieved from the
trash, polished up and finalized–that story is put into the literary bottle and floated out
to the wide readership sea on Publication Day.
There is a cliche in the writing business that, like most cliches, has some basis in fact:
“Everyone has at least one book in them.” While true, we all know that getting that book
out is the trick, because it takes hours of solitude and no small amount of discipline.
Those two realities, solitude and discipline, explain another cliche: “Few people want to
write, but everyone wants to have written.”
Publication Day feels a bit like college graduation. Behind you are the years, days, and
late nights of lectures, research, writing, revising, beer pong, and ahead is that diploma
confirming your accomplishment. Substitute a book for the diploma, and the feeling is
very much the same.
Jury of One is my seventh book. Because it resides in the popular genre of legal thrillers,
I’m optimistic it will furnish many hours of pleasure to lots of readers. In writing it, I
became so engaged with the characters that I’ve mentally outlined a sequel: Jury of
Two? I’ll have to give that title some thought. But not today. Today I’m going to enjoy
the pure satisfaction of having trod the long road from “Chapter 1” to “The End” of Jury
of One. My hope is that you get as much satisfaction from reading it as I got from seeing
it published today.