Today in the Atlanta-Journal & Constitution newspaper, the largest newspaper in the state of Georgia, appears a great article about my new book Waking the Sleeping Demon: 26 Hours of Terror in Atlanta.  I knew the article was coming because the reporter interviewed me yesterday and told me to watch for it in today's paper.  Nevertheless, as I typed in the web address and waited for the paper's homepage to appear, my heart was pounding so loudly I was momentarily confused by the source of the sound.  Then it appeared.  All 256 pages of self-published sweat and tears stared back at me.  I thought to myself, " my work is on the front page of the Metro Section of a newspaper being dropped in driveways and doorsteps across Atlanta."  It appears on the pages of a website other than my own.  Then my second set of anxieties grew stronger.  What would the reporter say about the book that took me a year and a half to write and another 8 months to edit.  (Side note: I have a phenomenal content and copy editor!  Thank God for both of them!)  I can hear the more experienced authors screaming to me not to define my work's worth by the critics because such insecurity is the quickest way to depression - but I couldn't help myself.  I felt like Sally Field must have felt during her Oscar acceptance speech - "The like me!  They really like me!"  Oh well, that moment has passed and now I wait for the next review.  I know criticism will come because my book talks about the costliest murder trial in the history of the state of Georgia, and, as a result, one of the most hotly debated.  In any event, if only for that brief moment, I felt like the “little author who could" who got to the top of the hill.