Breathing Life Into My Darling

 

 

My dream is, like many people’s, not reliant on myself alone. Because once you take that first step out of writing a book and into publishing it, that dream is no long yours only, but belongs to the people. It becomes, nearly, more theirs than yours, and all you can do is wait with shallow breath to see if they’ll accept it, and love it, and take care of it.

You have no control over the way others treat your dream, whether they spit on it, despise it, frown on it, love it, adore it, or admire it. Though you have poured your entire life’s hope into this single object, with a word, they may tear it down.

Or, perhaps, your dream will get lost in the millions of others, and no one will care, or see it. For they have that power, too, where you do not. It is their choice to see it, to open it, to breathe it in. It is their option whether they will take your dream in their hands and cradle it and gently bring it to life.

This is the curse of all authors.

The curse of waiting, breathlessly, to see if someone else will breathe life into your darling. Like a mother waiting to see if any prince is willing to awaken their daughter from an eternal sleep, we wait, with no control, no power.