Oh, wow. Okay.

For the first time since its publication, I read I'm Stalking Jake! cover to cover this week.

I am extremely proud of the end product.  I'm proud of the work that I did with Jake Watch, and remain astonished at my luck in finding such a productive and complementary partner in Susie (britpopbaby).

And yet I also now understand why so many people have commented to me on the "honesty" of the book as a whole.  As I wrote it, I was concerned I may come off as too sanctimonious.  I see now that those fears were ungrounded; I did a remarkable job of leaving my character flaws prominently in place.

It made me laugh, it made me clench up in rage...it was surreal to acknowledge that the story that I was reading was the story of my own life.  And not only that, but the story of my life as written by me.  That being the case, I can't quite explain how it was that I stayed up past my bedtime three nights in a row because I was dying to know "what happened next."

Jake Watch wasn't just a blog.  It was an adventure.  And it was a work of art - living and breathing art - that swept me and so many other people up in its wake.  I comment at one point toward the end of the book that there was nothing like it on the internet.  And there wasn't; there still isn't, and I doubt there ever will be.

If you haven't yet read the book, I strongly encourage you to do so.  An endorsement from the author may seem like a conflict of interest, but I wrote the damn thing and I hadn't read it yet, either.   Not really.  Not from the perspective of a reader, rather than a writer.

And now that I have, the only thing that I can say is that I am so incredibly glad that I wrote it.  Wow.  What a ride...