The book starts out as an idea. It’s vague, incomplete—more texture than substance, more flavor than bulk. Then you start to write. Words appear and form ideas, thoughts connect, a sense of communication develops. Finally, a draft takes shape. A terrible, awful, lousy conglomeration of words, where nothing fits, and nothing meaningful is said. So you fix it, again and again and again. If you’re lucky, somebody else helps you fix it also.

Finally, it seems OK. Maybe even good, or at least good enough. Anyway, by now you hate it, and you never want to see it or think about it again. So off it goes to the publisher. And then the real misery starts. Lots of people start fixing it. Some are kind and gentle; some are merciless and cruel. It is transformed—it undergoes mutilation, amputation, rearrangement. You hold your breath, nod OK, and click “accept, accept, accept” over and over again. And, finally, you are forced to admit—although you don’t want to—that it’s now much better.

Then it’s done. Now you really are through with it. Book? What book? There is no book, just some chapters, some words, some quotes, some sentences. Leave me alone! there is no book, it’s not real. I want to do something else.

And then the real work starts. Getting permissions, checking references, approving galleys, getting endorsements, doing interviews, talking about it, posting about it… You can barely remember what’s in it, and it feels less real than ever. It was never real. It was just an idea, a concept… , just words.

Finally, a big box arrives, so heavy you can’t lift it. You open it, and there they are. Books. Actual objects. Many, many identical copies of THE BOOK!! You pick one up, open it, look at the back, and at the cover, where you see your name. Maybe you even fan the pages and read a few words. Your words (mostly). They seem familiar, but it’s different now. Those are your words, but now they are in an actual book you are holding in your hand. It’s beautiful, this book; it’s yours, it’s real. And it will never die.