I had intentions for today. Reasonable, achievable, well-organised intentions. I was going to be calm and prepared and on top of things in the way that I am occasionally capable of being when the universe cooperates.

The universe did not cooperate.

I overslept. Not a gentle, pleasant overslept — the kind where you wake up softly and lie there for a moment feeling pleasantly human. No. The kind of overslept where you surface suddenly, already behind, with the immediate awareness that the day has been happening without you for longer than is strictly comfortable. That kind of overslept.

And the day after tomorrow is release day.

I want to be honest about the freaking out, because I think pretending otherwise would be doing a disservice to everyone who has ever stood on this particular ledge. It is not quiet. It is not calm. It is the specific, relentless anxiety of having worked on something for a very long time and being approximately twenty-four hours away from it existing in the world in a way that can no longer be adjusted or improved or taken back. Every doubt I have ever had about this book has chosen today to come and sit with me. They have made themselves comfortable. They have, apparently, unpacked.

The website is not as functional as I would like it to be. I won’t elaborate on that beyond saying that it is a work in progress in a way that feels more precarious than I would prefer on the day before anyone is supposed to visit it. The newsletters aren’t sorted either. But those I can fix tomorrow — that one I’m choosing to put down and not pick back up again until morning, because some things genuinely will keep and I need to make peace with that.

What I keep coming back to, underneath all of it, is this: the book is done. Whatever else is unfinished or imperfect or not quite where I wanted it to be — the book is done. Marc and Finn are ready. The story I worked so hard to tell is sitting there, complete, waiting.

Everything else is logistics. Logistics can be fixed.

Tomorrow it begins.

I am not calm about it. But I am ready.

— Avery