My son, Charlie, is about to graduate from high school and go on to college. I have high hopes for him because he’s good at so many things – sports, photography, making friends . . . spending money.

Seriously, he’s super talented. He has this amazing ability to shift personas depending on who he’s with.

With his classmates, he’s the funny, popular jock. With his girlfriend, Penelope, he’s Mr. Sweet and Charming.  With us, his parents, he’s this . . . creature who sometimes inhabits a bedroom.

Have you seen that viral video about the Crazy Nastyass honey badger? “Honey badger don’t care,” says Christopher Gordon, the campy narrator, as this weasel-like animal chases a snake up a tree and plunders a “house of bees” to eat the larvae.

Sometimes Charlie reminds me of a honey badger. He’s not very big – about 5-feet-4– but he makes up for his small size by being strong, absolutely fearless and, at times, mean.

This served him well when he was a star running back for the Roosevelt Roughriders. But it’s not so pleasant around the house. When he’s in a good mood, he shows his affection by playfully tackling us or hugging us so hard it hurts. When he’s not in a good mood and I dare enter his room to tell him something, he might just bite my head off.

Look, I get it. He’s leaving the nest. But first, he must soil it. He’s doing us a favor really. Instead of crying buckets, my husband, Mark, and I will be, like, “Phew! Glad that’s over. Let’s go clean out the half-empty food containers, shall we?”

I hope you’re not getting the wrong impression. We love our boys to pieces. And we were so ready to welcome them into our lives 19 and 21 years ago.

Mark cried when Charlie’s older brother, Casey, was placed into his arms at SeaTac Airport. A whole village of people came to witness his arrival and his brother’s two years later – our relatives, our neighbors, our neighbors’ kids. It was wonderful.

And our boys could be wonderful . . . when they weren’t fighting. Look at this adorable photo of the two of them together. This photo is a lie. Nothing could have prepared me, an only child, for the intense sibling rivalry between our sons.

When they were little, it was kind of cute and innocent. One would call the other Poop Face. There might be some bites exchanged, but they weren’t hard enough to break skin.

As they got older, their fighting got more targeted and vicious. Casey wouldn’t let Charlie forget that he repeated first grade because of speech and language delays. “Held back!” he’d yell or, one of my favorites, “Opposite of brainiac!” That one must have taken some thought. It’s almost Shakespearean.

Meanwhile, Charlie was also going straight for the jugular, calling Casey “fat” over and over and over again. (Now that Casey has lost about 50 pounds, this insult no longer applies, but Charlie continues to use it anyway.)

To figure out ways to improve our sons’ relationship, Mark and I took them to family counseling. We also attended a series of parenting classes called, appropriately enough, “Sanity Circus.”

The instructor told us to ignore the fighting. She said they were competing for our attention, and if we didn’t give it to them, they would stop. Okay, we said, but this isn’t your garden-variety sibling rivalry. This is physical. Blood has been drawn. If we leave them alone together, they might just kill each other.

That was about seven years ago, and I’m happy to report that both boys are still alive.

Since Casey went off to Western Washington University three years ago, our household has become a lot calmer. But I can’t help but feel disappointed. You see, I naively thought these years alone with our youngest son would be charmed. I thought he’d bask in our full and undivided love and attention.

Guess what? He doesn’t want it! What he wants is to hang out with his friends and his girlfriend and for us to leave him alone.

Here’s a typical conversation. It’s late Sunday morning and Charlie stumbles into the kitchen looking for food.

“Hey,” I say.

“What!?” (with a voice of extreme annoyance)

That’s it. That’s the conversation.

Such a charmer, that boy. The thing is, he is a charmer . . . with other people. “Everybody LOVES Charlie!” Mark and I heard that so often from teachers and other parents that we gave his fan club a name: “The Cult of Charlie.”

Now anyone who knows anything about raising kids will tell you that the abuse they heap on their parents isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw. What matters, they say, is how your child treats those people who aren’t you.

Charlie dumps on us because he can. It’s all healthy and good and normal because the three of us are doing a dance as old as time. It’s called the separation dance, and it’s anything but smooth and graceful. In fact, it can get downright ugly.

But we survived it with Casey, and he seems to be turning out okay. The last time he came home from Bellingham, he made us dinner. Twice. One night, before turning in, I told him “I love you,” and he said, “I love you, too.”

So I really do have high hopes for Charlie. This nest-soiling phase will pass, and he will test his wings or go off to battle angry bees or something. Meanwhile, we’ll be crossing our fingers that he doesn’t get stung too badly.

Farewell our little honey badger. Don’t forget to floss. 

I will leave you with that video. If you are the one person alive who hasn’t seen it yet, you’re in for a treat. It’s a hoot, but you might not want to play it at work. There are f-bombs. Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

I didn’t know what to expect when my debut novel, The Leaving Year, came out Aug. 14. Would my intended audience of teenagers enjoy it? Would they pick it up in the first place? Would anyone?

I’d read my book so many times I was numbed to its impact. While I thought it was pretty good, I didn’t know if it could compete with the action-packed fantasies and gritty contemporary novels that seem to dominate the young-adult genre. I’d had a tough time finding comparable titles, a marketing exercise all authors have to go through. My historic novel about the daughter of missing fisherman didn’t seem to fit anywhere. Would it die a quiet death?

Like a nervous parent, I worried, but I eventually had to trust that I’d done the best I could and that my book would find its way in the world.

Sometimes kids surprise you. My novel is doing just fine, maybe even more than fine, thanks in large part to the pre-publication work of my publisher, SparkPress, the marketing efforts of my publicist Liane Worthington of BookSparks, and, yes, my own dogged labors and perfectionism. The early reviews were better than I could have hoped. A couple of readers said my book brought them to tears—tears! I didn’t know I had such power.

I’m still on the post-publication amusement ride (and will be until Christmas), but I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what this once-in-a-lifetime experience has given me.

A thrill 

On the day that my ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) arrived in the mail, my husband, Mark Funk, knew not to wait. He came into the store where I was cashiering to present one to me. I think I actually yelped. There it was, the end result of all my years of toil and self-doubt, in one tidy (almost perfect) book. I stroked the cover, felt its thickness. Then I showed it to my co-workers. See? It wasn’t just talk. I really did write a book. It’s real.

A new perspective

I still have trouble summing up what my book is about. To me, it’s about so many things: loss, family, friendship, first love, self-image, prejudice, growing up in the Sixties . . . I had a hard time boiling it all down to one overriding theme. But my first reviewers didn’t. My book was about self-discovery. I suppose I knew that, but as the author, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Early on, I told people I was writing a book about “identity.” But it took readers to confirm that, to bring their own lens to my story. Published books really do take on a life of their own.

A (speaking) voice 

I’ve given two public talks so far and I didn’t throw up! I credit Toastmasters, specifically the Notable Northgaters club near my home. Its members are so welcoming and supportive because they’ve all been there. One woman said it took her months to work up the courage to go inside to her first meeting. She’d come and sit in the parking lot. Now she’s such a natural and engaging speaker you’d never guess she had an issue.

My own fear had me pacing the floors of my home on the day of my book launch. I practiced my remarks over and over again to Mark and my snoring dog. When the time came to give my speech, something happened. A calm came over me. I opened my mouth and a different, more confident person spoke through it.

I have two more public appearances scheduled. I’ve no doubt that I will still get nervous before each one, but I can see my phobia receding. Maybe someday I’ll start to enjoy this.

The LOVE! 

My book launch at Third Place Books in Ravenna was packed. People came from every sector of my life. Not only were there friends from childhood, high school and college, but friends from my husband’s past came, too. (Believe me, Mark deserves his own congratulations.) I saw my former newspaper bosses, several of my neighbors and women from my singing and triathlon-training groups, one bearing a bottle of wine. My family and extended family came, including my husband’s cousins and my sister- and brother-in-law (Mara providing food and Carl recording the entire event. Later, Carl would go on to create a promotional video for my book!)

Since the launch, friends I haven’t spoken to in years have come forward say they read my book and loved it. I did several signings at my 40^th Roosevelt High School reunion.

I’m not one who feels comfortable receiving praise — I seem to need to deflect it – but I have to admit that all this love, so unexpected, feels pretty good. Now I want to spread the wealth. I want to encourage all my creative friends to fulfill their dreams so I can support them.

A thicker skin 

Okay, this one’s a work in progress. I’m still obsessively checking Amazon and Goodreads for new reviews, cringing at the less than positive ones. Was I warned? Yes, I was.

“Don’t read reviews!” said best-selling YA author Justina Chen when I met her at her book launch for Lovely, Dark and Deep (a great read, BTW). Did I listen? Of course not. But now I know why Justina warned me.

Bad reviews and/or trolls are almost inevitable. If you let them, they can ruin your whole day, or worse, distract you from writing. The two-star ratings I received stung a bit. So did the criticism from a blogger who’d read only excerpts, and the fellow author who claimed (over and over again on Twitter) that I’d stolen her title. (I didn’t.) As aggravating and disheartening as those experiences were, I resisted the urge to respond. A thick skin is a virtue in this business. If I spend the rest of my life writing and publishing, I’ll become an armadillo.

A presence in libraries

It started with the starred review in School Library Journal, a trade publication that, according to publicist Liane, doesn’t hand out stars lightly. Now I’m thrilled to report that my book is in nearly 40 libraries across the country!

I took pictures with my cell phone as Mark checked my book out from the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library. This is the same library I used to go to with my grandmother when I was a child, the library I loved for its little flat steps outside and the big globe inside . . . and its books, of course. I checked out all the Beatrix Potter books and pawed through tomes of fairy tales, looking at the glossy illustrations.

Libraries and librarians helped me through many a homework assignment. I love libraries and continue to use them regularly. To me, there’s no greater honor than to see my book on their shelves.

The kindness of strangers 

I’d gone to the UPS store to mail some copies of my book to a couple of contests I’d entered. The friendly employee at the counter asked if I was an author.

“Yes,” I said. “This is my book.”

“Wow, how long did it take you to write it?”

“About seven years.”

His jaw dropped and he stared at me for what seemed like minutes.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

I explained that much of that time was spent waiting for agents and small publishers to get back to me. Then, after each round of rejections, I’d edit my book again.

“You persevered,” he said. “My parents always talked about the need for perseverance to get what you want.”

“There was no way I wasn’t going to finish this book.” I asked him his name.

“Jung, as in forever young.”

“Pam.” I reached out to shake his hand.

He shook his head and opened his arms. “You deserve a hug.”

Book launch photo by Carl Funk

Writing and producing a novel is a little bit like building a house, and I’m at the final-finishes stage, which means that my body is in the room, but my head is editing my book description for the 47^th time.

My poor husband. He has to repeat himself a lot these days.

The last time I was so obsessed with details was when we (actually mostly me) had to choose paint colors, carpeting, vinyl flooring, fixtures, door knobs, etc. for the second story we were adding to our house.

This time around, it’s book bits: the back-cover teaser,  the one- and two-sentence endorsements from other authors, even the extra pages you flip through to get to Chapter 1. You see, my publisher just sent me my “first pages,” which showed me for the first time what my book will look like on the inside, with actual book-sized pages, chapter headings and formatted text.

Most readers pay scant attention to the inside title page, author dedication and . . . what’s this blank sheet doing here? They certainly don’t stop to read all that copyright jargon and ISBN-code stuff in the beginning. Nor do they appreciate how the book’s interior layout and typeface contribute to the atmosphere of the story.

But those subtle things matter. They speak volumes about professionalism, which is why I’m sweating the details.

Getting blurbs

Unless you’re Stephen King or Margaret Atwood, you won’t have other writers knocking on your door begging for the chance to sing your praises. You have to ask. And if you’re a complete unknown, as I am, it seems like a particularly audacious request to make of another author.

Hi, um, you don’t know me, but would you mind terribly much reading my 340-page novel and writing something nice and pithy about it for my cover?

That’s what I was thinking as I sent endorsement-request letters to writers I know only through their work, including Meg Rosoff. She’s the award-winning author of seven novels, including How I Live Now, which has sold more than a million copies in 36 territories, won the Carnegie Medal and the National Book Award, and was made into a film.

Meg hasn’t gotten back to me yet.

But four other writers, all recognized young-adult authors, did respond, and graciously. Two begged off because they were too busy, one asked me to send her an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of my book and the fourth, Lish McBride, said “yes.”

I’d like to think Lish was eager to read my book again (she had read a far lesser draft), but more likely she was remembering the first time she had to ask for endorsements and took pity on me.

I’ll take pity.

My deepest thanks to Lish and the other authors/editors who have given me awesome blurbs: Anne Leigh Parrish, Emily Russin and Jan Von Schleh. You’re the best.

What’s that fish?

Largemouth bass. Micropterus dolomieui.

Since my book is about the daughter of a lost salmon fisherman, the interior-pages designer thought to accent my title pages with fish graphics. There’s a shadow image of a jumping fish under my title, and a little fish swimming between “A Novel” and “By Pam McGaffin.” I really love the design, but something about that shadow fish bothered me, so I consulted an expert.

Steve Kink, a former commercial fisherman, was my beta reader for all things fishy. I sent him the pages and asked him to tell me if these were salmon or not.

He responded almost immediately, from Hawaii, no less.

Coho salmon. Oncorhynchus kisutch.

“The first one looks like a bass and the second looks like a scrod,” he said. “You might want to redo those.”

Granted, nine out of ten readers wouldn’t know the difference between a scrod and a goldfish, but the one who does, like Steve, would surely call me on it. So we will fix this, along with any other errors I find as I once again comb through my 84,500-word novel.

I have an ISBN!

I have to confess that I read every number and word of legalize on my copyright page. There’s my name. There are my ISBNs. What’s an ISBN? I had to Google it to find out. Really quickly, an International Standard Book Number is a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies a published book for marketing purposes. Fascinating, huh?

My ISBN is: 978-1-943006-81-6

I will send a Starbucks gift card to the first person who can tell me what all those numbers mean without looking it up. (Of course I have no way of policing this.) Give me your answer in a comment below, or simply share your thoughts on publishing, life, fish, whatever. I’d love to hear from you!

Illustration of group of fish: Set of fish illustrations by Denton in Fishes of North America digitally enhanced by rawpixel.com

Illustrations of single fish: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Lab