Published!

In which I realize I'm an author now and have thoughts

Pictured above: an exhausted woman, photographed in a vulnerable moment, of a late afternoon, by her excited husband.

Coherence warning: I’m operating on about 412 functioning brain cells right now. Proceed with caution.

I’ve previously written (part of) this book’s origin story but to sum, she is my Firstborn and I love her. She will always hold a unique place in the canon I intend to create. She isn’t like my other manuscripts, partly because she’s a grown-up book now, but also because I both am and am not the same person who wrote her. I love her and am so proud of her existence.

Within the last decade I moved from gassing about dream of writing to becoming a writer. Then, outta nowhere, came the urge to share what I wrote. This—after a couple years of half-hearted attempts at finding representation—led to deciding to just go on and publish myself. So I did. Now the book is available. Real humans can read her. Real humans have already purchased her. All this is magical to me.

I’m of an era and background which did not encourage women taking space. What room I’ve learned to carve out for myself came at a cost. And it’s still not 100% easy for me to say this out loud but I’m proud of myself. In 2015, when I sat in my back garden writing the first draft of this story, I didn’t have anywhere near the bravery required to publish. It wasn’t even a top-of-mind concern at the time. I only knew writing demanded my commitment and would not take no for an answer. The whole ‘leaping off a cliff like a Fool’ thing didn’t emerge until 2018. Cue the queries and etc.

I began turning Where We Come Home into a real book in February of this year. Blessed beyond measure with a writing cadre possessed of mad skills, fantastic advice, and incredible generosity, I navigated it well, save for one day, when technical issues, which seemed insurmountable in the moment, required changing my original publication deadline. Deflated as a balloon, I spent the entire next day reading someone else’s book and napping. Then I re-entered the fray and from then calmly navigated the inevitable hiccups and learning curves. Deadlines got flexible, attitudes shifted. Despite the desolation of that one singular day, even during the twenty-four hour slump, it never occurred to me not to publish.

We creatives can be so hard on ourselves. We struggle against inferiority, perfectionism, myths and false messages from the outside, and goblins of our own making within. But with all my heart I believe our books teach us. They tell us how they want to be written. They don’t give a flying fig about sales records, number of subscribers, or algorithms. They simply want to be told. Every time we writers shut out the noise, listen to the story, and ply that pen or keyboard we are doing our job. The story is the point. Sure, sometimes projects need to rest. Darlings must die by our own ruthless hand. On rare occasions, the timing is truly wrong; a great idea turns out to have been misdirected in post and isn’t for us to tell. But all our efforts are, or should be, bent in service of the story.

Where We Come Home rested a lot; she also made noise when she’d lain fallow too long. And here we bloody are. She’s in the world, literally available wherever books are sold. (I am, however, leaning hard on the ‘please buy from an indie bookstore’ message. Indie authors and indie bookshops need each other.)

I am so mentally tired right now I’m not even going to revise or proof this post. (So not like me.) Other than the sending of a few emails, I’m not doing another damn thing for the next three days except celebrate, have champagne with my family (and our neighbor who, god bless her, read the first draft), and rest.

Then, come Monday, this published author is going to get back to work on her next story.