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Ever since my publishing deal was finalized, I’ve thought a lot about the journey to get here. I remember:
Walking across the Piazza Carlo Goldoni in Florence, where I first told the story idea to my husband
Vowing to devote my time to writing that novel while sitting in a dim hospital room. If life is this fragile, there’s no time to waste
And taking this picture, when the book was nothing but the start of an outline arranged on my living room floor:
Then, of course, there are the thousands of hours when I wrote—in the mornings before work, at midnight after my husband went to bed, on the weekends when I could’ve been at the beach—and the book became a book…
Eventually, the book will go out into the world on its own. It will have its own experiences with readers I never meet. The book will grow and change without me, and I will grow and change without it.
But before that, we have a long, winding path ahead of us to get the book published. There are talks with editors and pub dates and artwork and PR campaigns and proofing galleys and holding the book in my hands… and many things I can’t yet imagine.
Now that the book is finally a book… the journey has just begun.