My First Autograph

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Something small happened at work today.

At least, I think it was supposed to be small.

I was just walking through the hallway on my way to the bathroom when I ran into one of my coworkers. Somewhere in that completely ordinary conversation, she told me that she had bought my books.

Both of them.

Book One and Book Two of Coffee and The Pecan Pie.

I remember just standing there thinking…

Wow.

She told me she was going to bring them to work because she wanted me to sign them.

And I don't think she realized what that meant to me.

I've never had anybody ask for my autograph as an author before.

I've signed plenty of things in my life. Forms. Documents. Work paperwork. Military paperwork. Things that needed my name because somebody somewhere required it.

But this was different.

Someone wanted my signature because I wrote something.

Because she had something that came from me sitting in her hands.

And that felt good.

Really good.

The funny thing is, the money didn't matter to me at all. My first instinct was almost to give her the money back. I kept thinking she didn't have to spend her money on my books.

But that's exactly the point.

She didn't have to.

She chose to.

She saw something I created and decided that she wanted to own it. She wanted to read it. And then she wanted the person who created it to put his name inside her copies.

For most of my life, I've accomplished things and then moved on to whatever came next.

You finish something.

You complete the mission.

You solve the problem.

You fix the computer.

You close the ticket.

You get through another day.

And eventually most of those accomplishments become memories.

But a book is different.

Somebody can keep it.

They can put it on a shelf.

They can pick it up years from now.

And today someone basically told me that something I created was worth keeping.

I don't think I was prepared for how much that would mean to me.

I've known for a while now that technically I'm an author. I wrote the books. We published them. They're real books with covers and pages and listings that people can actually purchase.

I understood all of that.

But today it felt different.

Today being an author wasn't a publishing screen.

It wasn't Amazon.

It wasn't a sales number.

It wasn't a website.

It was another person standing in front of me saying she had my books and wanted me to sign them.

Maybe that's when it became real for me.

I've wondered whether writers remember moments like this.

Before anybody knew their names.

Before book signings and audiences and readers waiting in lines.

Was there once just one person?

Someone who bought the book, looked at the person who wrote it, and asked for a signature?

Maybe every author has a moment when somebody else makes them realize that their words have left their hands and entered somebody else's life.

Today might have been mine.

And if the person who caused this journal entry ever happens to find the RomNote Project someday and realizes that I'm talking about her…

Thank you.

You probably thought you were just telling me that you bought a couple of books.

You gave me something much bigger than that.

You gave me one of the first moments where I genuinely felt what it was like to be an author.

And I'm going to remember it.

I'm already thinking ahead.

When the next book is finished, I want to buy a copy myself, sign it, and give it to her.

Not because I owe her a book.

Because I want her to know that I remembered the person who gave me this moment.

Today also did something else.

It made me want to keep writing.

It made me excited again about finishing JARBIT and the world we're building around it. The characters. The comics. The ridiculous ideas. The serious parts underneath all of it.

Because suddenly I'm imagining those books existing in someone's hands too.

Maybe someday someone will walk up carrying JARBIT and ask me to sign that one.

And now I know what that might feel like.

Funny.

I was just trying to go to the bathroom.

Instead, somewhere in an ordinary hallway on an ordinary workday, somebody made me feel like an author.

Not because I published a book.

Because she wanted my signature inside one.

That felt good, man.

That really, really felt good.

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— Romeo