It doesn’t belong to you

You’ve done it! You completed your novel. And you got a publishing contract! Now your novel is out. You’ve really done it. You’re the peach, you shine!

So… what now?

Get ready for the interviews and the fans, I guess? Prepare a set of answers about your novel, describing what you meant with this and that motif, what themes you integrated, how you crafted your characters? Hit the social media to chat up readers, enlighten them about your research process, and share details about your world-building?

Just basically enjoy being in the limelight of a newly-minted book, right?

Well, how about no, for a change.

Too often there’s big hullabaloo about the author once a book comes out. Everybody’s like, “How did you feel when you wrote that? Where do you get your ideas? What’s your diet like and how do you exercise?” Too few ask the book, “Who are you? And what can I do with you?”

If you look at it, though, who does the book belong to? The author? Hell no, they just farted that thing out. It may be of them – in a limited fashion at that – but it isn’t theirs. Whose is it, then? The publisher’s? Well, they desperately try to make money from it, but that’s just it, the only thing they get is the money.

Whose is it, then? Who is the book for?

Ya, you guessed it. For the people. For the readers. For the flies and the worms. And the thing is, it’s for them to decide what the book means. We writers ain’t got a vote. The authors don’t got no authority.

The book is read by the readers, and it’s that process that truly creates the book. That’s it. You dropped the fruit from the tree, but it’s for the animals down below to eat.

Let’s all try to remember that. If the limelight hits us, let’s try to remember that we’re not the item. The book is the item, and we ain’t got a handle on it. The book wasn’t born in our minds. The book is born, again and again, in the reader’s mind.

The book belongs to the world. And the world has every right to do with it as it pleases.

It’s like it’s autumn, the chicks are out of the nest and all growed-up, preparing to fly off. They’ve got to test their wings; it’s youth VS the world now. Us, the mama birds, ain’t got a say in anything anymore.

But… what do you do then, after you’ve completed your work? Well, you do what the mama birds always do.

You lay the next egg.