VLB Éditeur

I will undoubtedly calm down eventually. Yesterday I received the VLB Publisher contract. I was asked to initial all the pages of the agreement in blue ink and then sign the last one.

I’ve become too modern. Not a pen at my house. I could have asked the neighbor, but I really needed to calm down. So I took the subway to a downtown stationery store, nothing less. During the journey, I reworked a chapter, handwritten by Perig in hand, and in the other my iPad Mini.

I took the opportunity to do the weekly grocery shopping, then went home, still with the manuscript under my fingers. I didn’t like that passage in chapter 33 at all. Too fast in emotions.

After putting the groceries away, I read the rather standard contract, initialed, signed, and went down to the ground floor to have Laurent signed as a witness. VLB provided the stamped envelope for the return of their copy. $1.34 per stamp? Enough? I’m too afraid of problems. I go to the post office, not far away and they confirm that everything is in order. The counter clerk takes out her large stamp and shoots it on the envelope, which seals the agreement. The envelope spins in a slot.

I just came from the post office, nervous. It’s serious now. A big publishing house held me back. Strangely enough, I am worried about the next text to be written, not the one that has not yet been completely revised.

At home, unable to work even if customers are waiting. I have a little headache, I decide to take a bath. I’m almost asleep. My friends are waiting for me for dinner. I am taking with me the bottle of sparkling wine that had been in my refrigerator since October, forgotten at the bottom of a cupboard for four years.

The intoxication begins. The meal is delicious. Confit of Quebec duck which, for once, is not dry and cheaper than what is sold in grocery stores. Good red wine. My head is spinning. I ended up going home, unable to really go to bed. I’ve had too much to drink. The liver is no longer used to emotions and bubbles.

In the morning, I had a dream. I was making $5 million. I woke up disappointed to find out that it wasn’t. On the bedside table, my iPad and the manuscript. I am beginning to calm down, I will stop talking about it, I will go back to the bottom of the cave, not to hibernate, but to find there the dark matter of solitude on which to draw the water from my word.

Thank you VLB Publisher. I’m calming down. I have work to do.