So, publishing…

I was on a Skype call recently, discussing my tentative move towards pursuing publication, and the person on the other end of the call asked me, ‘Why? Why do you want to get this published?’. Good question.

At this point, I inexplicably went into a particularly British paroxysm and rambled on about how I was very fond of the novel and other such nonsense that I’ve since blocked out for the sake of my sanity. Yeah. Fond.

Serious credit to her for not looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

The thing is, I wasn’t sure how to articulate what I wanted to say. Those fragile hopes we all keep locked within us about one thing or another. I want the reader to feel. I want them heart-soul-and-gut invested in the story, the emotions, the world, in whether the characters come out the other side and what those relationships are. That bittersweet cathartic roller coaster of sharing those moments, willing a protagonist on against insurmountable odds, and knowing themselves in turn through that. But who am I, tapping away at my laptop, dreaming of toying with people’s emotions, to hope that this story should, can, strike a chord. What writer doesn’t long for that? I love these characters dearly, but that doesn’t mean that anyone else will see merit in the story or the writing, and just because I’ve written it, that doesn’t mean anyone else has to care.

But, despite all that, I think, why not do this? Try this? I have been squirrelling away words for over a decade; more often than not, a phrase at a time, a piece of dialogue, but sometimes pages and pages where I can barely catch my breath for keeping up. I’ve started and abandoned so many novels, written some truly awful garbage, but a few I’ve always returned to. There have been days when I’ve not noticed the time or lack of meals because I’ve been flying, caught up in a world and its people. And I want others to lose themselves in that story too, the way I have with so many authors’ words, to hold those characters close to their hearts. If a reader learns something about themselves through it, then I will have done what I set out to.