The best part of writing a book is the writing. That might sound silly, but it’s true. I love the process of discovery. The hours spent sitting at my desk mining the memories, images, ideas and emotions that form the words on the page.
I wrote my latest book, Estrellas, during the pandemic. When the world was absolutely still and going outside the safety of the house was literally taking your life in your hands. As an extrovert, those days were hard for me. I need the stimulation of the outside world, the noise of life and the engagement of others. Unable to do that I found myself relishing the “rewalking” of the Camino through my memories. Exploring the things I saw and thought and felt during that long first year of COVID was a respite for me.
Once the writing is finished the revisions begin. You delete and adjust and reconfigure and delete some more until you get what you think is good enough… because it’s never perfect… but good enough to say, “OK. I think this is it.” And then you send it off to your publisher.
And you wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And just when you think you can’t possibly wait any more there’s the email you’ve been waiting for. The cover and the typeset version for you to look at one. more. time. And so you stop everything else in your life like cooking and cleaning and walking the dogs and grading the hundreds of papers you have to grade (To my students, I’m sorry about that!) and you get back to work one last time to make sure it’s really, truly, good enough to go.
And that’s where we are. It’s done. Off to the printers and ready to find a home out in the world.
Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago is available now from Adelaide Books. March into your favorite indie bookseller and order a copy or 10 or use your computer keyboard to do the same at your favorite online bookseller.
Read it. Review it. Share it with friends.
I’m counting on you.