The Isolated Camaraderie of Debuting as an Author

It’s a strange thing, publishing your first book. Everyone around you gets suddenly excited. Your family and friends, after years of nodding along to your rantings and ravings about the competitive publishing industry, the querying trenches, and the unexpected stress of submission, abruptly show a genuine interest. They want to know about the launch events, how sales are going, how it feels to publish a book. You’ve become a curiosity — a blip of creative breakthrough in a world of predictable sameness — and it’s fun for others to bask in the afterglow.

But for the author? Debutting is an odd experience. It’s lovely to feel so supported, not to mention finally having something to show for your efforts, but there’s also a new barrier. That unshakable feeling that those around you don’t at all understand what it’s taken to reach this point, and very well never will (and that’s okay). There’s a palpable, unforeseen sense of separation. That you’ve switched boxes in the minds of those around you, and there’s no going back. A few weeks ago, you were a professional who wrote stories on the side; now, you’re a published author who works a day job. The same, yet different.

Then, as the dust of the debut begins to settle, new questions arrive, both internally and from the mouths of those same friends and family who’ve started to finish your book. What’s next? Is there a sequel? Do you have other ideas?

It’s then that you realize you’ve entered a new phase. Part two of being an author. People are invested. They want to see what’s next, both for you as an author and in your stories. Up to this point, your work was your own, but now it’s also owned by those who read it. They can find new meaning in words you never considered, reshaping your story into something different. They can love it, hate it, or perhaps most likely of all, land somewhere in between.

In other words, you’ve given up control. Your little world of words is no longer only your own, but shared by all those who read it; and yet, you’re still the author, and they are still readers. You’ll never approach your work in the same way, meaning you’ll never be on the same playing field. One one side, a producer, and on the other, a consumer. An unexpected sense of responsibility creeps down your spine, hardening your resolve to continue. To keep spinning yarns and creating worlds.

For those who care. And for yourself.

Never the same, but connected.