As I told you recently, I've received Advance Reading Copies of WAKING LAZARUS--as have authors reading the book for possible endorsements, as well as a few reviewers. (The bulk of the review copies, I believe, have yet to go out--just the long lead publications at this point.)

Previously, I talked about the somewhat surreal experience of reading my own ARC. The first 50 pages or so were rough; I found it hard to take off the editing hat and just read the thing. But at some point along the way, that editing hat did come off, and I actually enjoyed reading.

For me, one of the great pleasures of reading is coming across sections or passages that really strike a chord, then re-reading them again just to savor them. That's happened with a lot of King's work. With Enger's Peace Like A River, I found myself doing it on almost every page; same with Athol Dickson's recent River Rising. If I keep saying to myself, "Man, I wish I'd written that," I know I"m liking the book.

So it's somewhat interesting to have that experience while reading your own work. While reading WAKING LAZARUS, I came across passages I enjoyed--a number of them, I'm happy to say. Oddly enough, my first thought, in each and every case, was: "Did my editor do that?"

As you might have guessed, it's easy for me to be naturally critical of my own work--most writers, I'm guessing, find it easy to be self-critical. So actually enjoying my own book was an odd experience, so much so that my mind wanted to attribute the "good" passages to my editor: "Man, Dave really whipped that part into shape." I suppose I open myself up to some interesting Freudian interpretation to say such things, but so be it.

So yes, I've found it is indeed possible to like my own work. Parts of it, anyway.

But never all of the parts.