June 3, 2017 – For all the lows in this writing business (rejection, anyone?), there are a lot of highs.
Signing with an agent. Getting a book contract. The box of advance copies, your book made real. Release day. Book signings. Nice letters from strangers. Nice words from your parents!
You know what’s not fun, even though it seems as though it should be?
The day you send your manuscript off – the one over which you’ve slaved for months, years, tweaking the damn thing sentence by sentence; some days word by word – to an editor.
I remember how I felt the day my son went off to kindergarten. Heart, ripped out. This is about the same.
Because once I click on “send,” my baby is no longer fully in my control. Out into the world it goes. People might ignore it. Or be mean to it. It might disappear.
When the monkey brain hits this point, I try to re-boot. To remind myself of how my son bounded onto the school bus that first day with nary a look back. He was happy to be out in the larger world.
And maybe my book will be, too, hobnobbing with its peers on store and library shelves, hanging out on somebody’s nightstand (please, God, on top of the TBR pile), maybe with some pages dog-eared. The book will be fine.
And maybe, in a few days, when I’ve applied the only effective remedy – starting the next book – I will be, too.
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