The phone rings at 7:38am. I’d been laying in bed for a half hour trying to decide whether or not I should force myself to sleep more or just suck it up and get on with my day, so the jangling of the phone made up my mind. I piled my (unruly, bedded) hair on top of my head, threw on a tank top and shorts, and wandered into the kitchen to pour myself some Kashi GoLean Crunch – which is the shit, by the way – before sitting down at my computer to make my morning rounds.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I don’t sleep well most nights. My issue is I can’t stop my brain from whirring when I should be sleeping. I’ve tried all those stupid little tricks, like not working past 8pm or meditating before bed, but meditating turns into brainstorming and plotting before too long, and then I’m just burning incense for no reason. The source of my insomnia is always work related, whether it be good or bad. Thankfully this time it’s good – I finished the final round of edits on Naked Ambition Monday night and Fed-Exed them in to the publisher yesterday, which is who was calling me at 7:38. I thought it might be to let me know they received the final draft and all was well, but they wanted to talk to me about some stuff on the cover.
Don, my editor, has been fantastic to work with. He’s indulged my little perfectionist snits with grace and patience, and he’s as excited about the book as I am. He called this morning to discuss some changes to the cover and double check with me who it was that took the picture they’re going to use on the back cover because they wanted to give credit where credit was due. I’d sent them two pictures.
“Which one are you going to use?� I asked.
“The one of you in the sex store,� Don said. “The one where you’re portrait style wasn’t going to work because we’d have to cut some of the text out.�
The one where I’m in a sex store? I thought. I wasn’t in a sex store when I took those shots, I was in Todd’s studio. Oh, wait…
“Am I laying upside down in a pile of sex toys?�
“Yes! And you’re holding a purple dildo!�
Ah yes, the purple dildo. Here’s the story on the purple dildo: I wanted to have some fun with the book photo, so I asked one of my former clients if it was okay to use some of their sex toys in the picture. They said fine. So when I met with Todd (a mainstream photographer friend who had the fortune of shooting Jamie Foxx all day long before he won his Oscar) and Trendee (my make-up artist friend) I told them I wanted to have some fun with the shoot.
So I slipped off my t-shirt and put on a button-down that I snaked from Dr. Troy and we did some portrait-style shots with the shirt gaping open just a little so a smidge of my black bra showed. Then we threw all the sex toys on the floor in a different part of the studio and tried a number of things: me kneeling in them, me lounging in them, me crossed-legged in them… then Todd became inspired. He dragged a huge ladder over and climbed atop it, instructing Trendee to hold the bottom steady.
“Carly, lay on the floor in the middle of the toys and kinda arrange them around you, but so your head is toward the ladder, so I’m looking at you upside down.�
I do as I’m told. He starts shooting.
“Can you… there’s a purple dildo above your head,� he says after a while. I reach around for it without moving my body position. “Nope. To the right a little… there. Grab it.�
Clickety click click.
From then on, it was all about the purple dildo. Every shot we did for the next hour and a half had me in some sort of contact with the purple dildo, whether I was holding it, grazing it with my hand… no, nothing that extreme, you dirty minders. It was all g-rated stuff. At any rate, one of those purple dildo pictures is going to be on the back cover of my first book.
I’m sure I won’t live that down anytime soon.
Anyway. Don and I continued talking for nearly an hour abut the galley copies, where we can do readings, the press opportunities… and while I realize the book is coming out in just over two months, it still doesn’t feel real. The last edit I did was on the actual layout as opposed to just printed pages, and even that didn’t feel real. I guess it’ll hit me when I get the finished product, with the naked girl on the front and me gripping a purple dildo on the back.
Either way, the book is officially finito as of today.
Time for the next one.
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