Hello, fellow writers!
The day has finally come—my book is now fully out in the world. But as it happens, I’ve got a lot of other stuff on my mind, and so that fact mostly lingers at the edge of my consciousness.
A few days ago, I found a note from the postal service in my mail, alerting me that there was a package they couldn’t deliver because it wouldn’t fit into my tiny mailbox.
What could it be? I wondered. The next day, already weighted down with a couple of bags, I presented myself at the post office and handed in my slip. The heavy square box from an address I didn’t recognize only deepened the mystery.
I was halfway through the half-mile walk home, my biceps already complaining, when I realized.
Oh!
I must be carrying my author’s copies, a gift from Wesleyan University Press, albeit one sent from their warehouse rather than their offices.
Groaning muscles notwithstanding, I laughed at the irony of doing a last bit of lifting. Here was another reason to be glad I’d kept my word count below a svelte ninety thousand.
Maybe my near-oblivion is a blessing, though. In her entertaining book on writing, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott described the time just before a book’s release as “right up there with the worst the world has to offer” (1994, xxv).
I can’t pretend I haven’t had my moments. I’ve definitely found myself trapped in intense little squalls of anxiety when I have needed to stop and think about people actually reading and forming opinions about my thoughts and experiences.
Kind friends have reassured me at such times. Or dryly reminded me that there’s little I can do at this point.
Except that there is one thing I have left to do—a highly pleasurable thing. And that to-do-list item is also my one little tip to share in today’s brief post, something I learned when I finished up my last big piece of writing, my dissertation thesis.
I loved writing its acknowledgments section, reminiscing about all the generous people who had supported me in so many lovely ways during the years it took to research and then write the thesis. And yet I knew that, for one reason or another, many of those people would never read it—not even its acknowledgments pages.
I decided to share them more broadly, emailing the text to everyone I thanked. It was a simple, easy gesture that I knew I would enjoy. What surprised me was how much everyone else did.
People replied to congratulate me on my accomplishment, but also to say how pleased they were to know they’d been “on my team,” as one person put it, and how nice it was to see that recognized in print.
So, if it’s not already your practice, share your thanks far and wide! Or if you don’t yet have the opportunity, imagine the contentment you’ll feel doing so at the end of a long and challenging project. It’s a rewarding way to send your work into the world.
Tell me! What do you do to center yourself as you share your writing? I’d love to hear your stories and strategies!