Twenty-one weeks after the first day of the second new year

You’ve probably guessed from Author’s post sixteen weeks after the first day of the second new year that Author has reached The End of her next book for you, the real end. There’s that moment when you close the files of your book in whatever format you’ve decided to publish it, in Author’s case the ebook file and the paperback ready-to-print file, and you know that that’s the last time you’ll be closing them. Perhaps you give them a new name, a final name, perhaps you save them in a new folder, a folder of finals, where they will remain from here on. The ebook you upload, the print file you send to the company printing your books. That’s it, you’re done, you can let go.

Right. Not so simple. That moment when you close the final files, that’s not easy to get to, to bring yourself to hit save and then close them one last time. Even when your book is ready, when its content and publication formats are all set, you will still rack your brain, still wonder if there’s anything else you could do. That last saving and closing of the files, knowing that that’s it, your story is done, you will ever go back to it, that’s going to take some time for you to get to. Perhaps with experience, confidence, it will get easier? Maybe, or maybe not. You care about your books, each and every one of them is important to you, you will want to do your best with all of them. That moment when you need to make the decision to finally close them, finally publish, finally move on, might well have an impact on you each and every time.

Note that Author isn’t talking about that moment as the one in which you let go, let that particular story, that particular book, go. Because that’s not what it is. Author used to think it is, she wrote in this blog a post on letting go, on being in that seam between a new book and one that is about to be published, that it’s time to let go of. This was in this blog’s first year, nine weeks after the second day of the new year to be exact. But Author understands now that there is no letting go, not really. Even after her books have been published, she hasn’t let any of them go. She can’t tell you she ever will, her books haven’t been out there that long. But she has certainly not let go yet. And you might not, either. Even after you publish, when there is no longer anything you can do, your books will be part of you. You will follow them to see how they’re doing, you will check to see the feedback to them. But more than that, you will never let go of the special connection you have to each story you’ve written, it will always awaken in you memories no one else has of it, of the path to its creation and of the range of feelings that creation, and that path, evoked in you. Your stories are no less part of you once you share them with your readers. The link is there, and you will never let go.

But you will go on to write another book, and another one after that, and hopefully many others after them. And that’s what Author is already doing. She is working on a new book for you. But you know what? Author isn’t going to talk about it now. This post is for her latest book that has now reached The End. It’s a contemplation, if you will, of the story that Author will soon be sharing with you, her readers. The next one that she will not be able to let go of, just like she hasn’t let go of the ones before it.

And her tip for you this week? Don’t let go. Cherish that special connection you have to each and every one of your stories. That caring, that’s what puts you among writers who put their souls into their stories. It’s what makes you the writer you are.