I know I made a lot of mistakes while writing and publishing The Diminished. I know because it’s literally impossible to not make mistakes while writing and editing and promoting a book. That said, and much like Julie, I don’t really remember what those mistakes were.
I have a tendency to dwell on things. If I said something that might be misconstrued as being somewhat out of line to you ten years ago, rest assured. It still haunts me at night. I’m kept up thinking about the one time I might have almost said something mean to my husband that was a joke, but maybe didn’t get taken as a joke because I don’t know how to make jokes. Seriously.
I do this so much in my personal life that I’ve worked REALLY FREAKING HARD to stop doing it in my professional life. So I stopped reading reviews the day my book was published. I’ve written 3 books since I turned in the first round of edits on The Diminished, and I barely remember the book I finished yesterday (literally).
It’s good for me, this letting go. I love each word, character book, more than anything else while they’re in front of me, and then I let them go. I think it’s a good approach to debuting, in the end. The words aren’t yours anymore when they make it onto printed pages, so let them go. Let them make their way into the world and into the hands of readers who may love or hate them. You can’t control that any more than you can control the mistakes you made while writing them.
