September 15, 2025
This is a strange in-between time. The “pre-launch downtime“ a writer friend called it. “Enjoy it,“ she said. At the time she said that, I hadn’t quite reached the lull yet. I had finished revisions on my picture book, but I was still buried in edits for Tested, working madly to meet deadlines. If this was downtime, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to survive when things got busy.
But now I’ve reached the lull. Edits are done. Publication date is still half a year away. I’ve had time to remember how to do things beyond rewriting manuscript words and going to work. (Hike! Swim! Walk with friends! Read! I even—gasp—watched a movie one night.)
I’m also getting the chance to share a few advance reviewer copies of Tested with friends and family before the book releases next March. Getting the ARCs, as they are known, is a momentous event. Bound paperback volumes with final cover art and formatted interior. They look like REAL BOOKS. But not quite. These are uncorrected proofs. The text isn’t final. By the time the printed ARCs were out, the electronic version of the manuscript had gone to the proofreader and moved on through further revisions. My ARCs arrived in the middle of an overwhelming week of reviewing the proofreader’s edits and proofing the whole thing yet again. (Last chance for happiness! Need to make everything perfect! Oh no, I’ve used the word “door” three times in one paragraph! Oh no, the chapter 25 ending sounds the same as the chapter 23 ending!) I could barely look away from the page to open my box.
I did finally open it and found eight copies of Tested. I snapped a documenting photo with in-process revisions in the background. I tried to unwind enough to feel the marvel of the moment. I was holding my first book in my hand.
The real marvel, it turns out, is sharing the book. After being so immersed in editing, especially the last polishing round of reaching for impossible perfection, it was kind of scary to let people read the story. My brain was hyperventilating over stubborn individual words, comma errors, and now-dreaded hyphens. But as I’ve shared the book, I’ve realized something odd—and oddly reassuring: I don’t experience my book the same way a reader does.
When I read my manuscript, I can’t help reading for words, phrases, sentences, and punctuation. The interior mechanics. I’ve always got my eye out for what I could be doing better.
Others get to read the book for story. They get to be with Mikayla, not knowing the outcome. They get to wonder what happens next. I never get that experience with my own work. (Thankfully I get to read lots of other books for story, just not mine.) I’ve put together the pieces of the novel, built words and paragraphs, scenes and chapters, an entire book—and now I’m letting it go. I still see words, but my readers see Mikayla’s world. That is truly a thrill.