Annie, thank you.
I realised i’d been feeling PPB (Blues)for while but didn’t recognise it. I was addicted to the thrill of it and now it’s all so quiet and boring. And yes, i felt abandoned too when the publisher moved onto the next book and i’m left there clicking ‘send and receive’ in the hope another email might come through from her.
LOL – it’s so funny to know what it is now…. time get writing again!

Cheers and best of luck to you all.

This year, I published my second book–tiny house, mostly self, no fanfare.

That’s 12 years between, during which the publishing world went utterly haywire.

I was traumatized by my book’s lack of Best-Sellerdom, to say the least. Plus, my agent could find no takers for my second book/first novel–I suspect that the fact that I didn’t earn out my big-house advance made me a “bad risk” in a very uncertain world for literature in general and First Novels in particular.

This publication, the current little book of humor essays, has been a learning experience. It’s also taught me to mind my expecttations. Am I in full post-partum mode? Hell yeah! Dies it cut me to the heart like the fate of my first book?

No.

Maybe it’s because I’m older now, or because I republished the first, when I got my rights back three years ago, and even though the new paperback reprint is languishing, the eBook–which I begged both earlier publishers to do, in vain (it was sold to a university press by the big house-)–s earning me a little money here and there, which is refreshing, since all earlier profits went toward that advance.

Mostly, though, this new little book, unrelated to the first, is MINE. No rush to market it; nobody’s imposed deadlines to meet. Profit, if it comes, is mine; if it fails, I won’t be professionally tarred and feathered for it.

So…my post-partum blues is mitigated somewhat by the fact that this is my Menopause Baby. Will others follow? Maybe; maybe not. The choice is mine, as is the challenge. I’m taking my time, not seeking counseling quite yet…

And then I remember an article by Steven Pressfield about the most important writing lesson he ever learned which he’s very blunt about: “Nobody wants to read your sh*t”. And I stop myself voicing the thought aloud and just say “Sure when it’s out, buy a copy.” knowing they mostly won’t because…nobody wants to read my sh*t.

Truth is, unlike a new baby, who will crawl and undoubtedly walk, our beloved book emerges and whether it will take a breath at all is not in our gift, smack it as hard as we might. I truly have no idea whether what I have created is any good at all, unless it is good for a reader. They have the gift of life, not us. Depression is also the impotence of finding that out, but it only happens after all that creative pushing.

And no, that doesn’t really change with every book thereafter. I’ve had – what – more than a dozen published now – Harper Collins, indie, all across the board – and there’s always a little bit of the blahs afterwards (it’s DONE now, what do I do now…?) until the next book bites and I go on with life and with writing.

In the end, all we can do is keep on keeping on, really, and hope for the best…

Cheers to you and deep congratulation!

I’m moving on to write a memoir next … thinking that I’ll need thicker skin for that! 🙂 I am grateful for this experience. Margaret, I agree … forewarned is forearmed!