One step closer…

20 Years Later front cover

The ARCs (advance reader copies) for 20 Years Later arrived today.

I was alone in the house at the time, so the poor postman got the brunt of my delighted squeal when I realised the box on my doorstep was from America. I gabbled the reason for my ecstasy in one breath as I signed for the delivery and then raced to the kitchen to cut it open.

I've often said that writing a book is like giving birth, and the feelings of opening the box were incredibly similar to labour. Less physically painful of course, but the mental frisson of questions was the same. What will my baby look like? Will it be perfect? Oh God I've waited so long for this, what if it's not what I thought it would be?

I'm happy to say I was just as thrilled with my book as I was with my little man. It's bigger than I thought it would be – it's half an inch bigger all round than most of my paperbacks. It's the same size as my George RR Martin books, so that made me happy in a silly geek kind of way.

I flicked through and was struck by how different it looks. I've lived with this book for years, on the computer screen and then on hundreds of pages of single spaced lines of Times New Roman. The font in the book looks fresh and modern and the cover looks even better in the flesh paper than on the screen. Reading the passages I have is remarkably different, so much so it's almost like I didn't write it!

I still can't quite believe it! One of the copies has been on my desk all day, I keep glancing at it every two minutes, marvelling at how it has appeared, checking to see if it really is there. I did the same with my little man too, though of course he was in a cot, not on a desk…

So now it's careful proofing time, and the inevitable self-doubt and fearful thoughts have already started. I just keep reminding myself that it's absolutely impossible for me to have any objective opinion about the book, and that the publisher has liked it enough to take the huge gamble of printing it, so I should just let those silly fears slide away.

Whilst that's happening, it will be sent out to fifty people in America for ARC reviews. Again, it's like having a child, now it's going out into the world… will people like it? Will they be kind or cruel? Will it be a success?

It's taken five years to reach this point. No, it's taken thirty years actually – I started writing when I was four years old and it was all building to this first milestone. There were times when I never thought I'd get here, times when I thought that self-publishing was the only option for me, and times when I believed that I couldn't write at all.

So if you've ever felt that way, remember me, in my messy kitchen, squealing and jumping up and down over a battered box of beautiful books from America. Dreams sometimes do come true, even in the real world.