The Time Capsule of Writing a Book

I set a rule for myself early on not to read reviews of my book unless they were from trade publications, but I broke that rule. (I think that many writers do.)

The curiosity of knowing if others enjoyed my book was just a click away, and the temptation to see their thoughts was a big, shiny waxed apple. It was too much to resist.

I know this is bad practice. Writers are strongly advised against entering reader spaces. I’ve been on the internet long enough to see a few authors fall from grace for inelegantly engaging with reviews. So, I swore not to engage. Not to respond. Just to peek through the keyhole.

One. Quick. Look.

I was prepared to feel upset. I steeled myself as I began to read, waiting for that wave of frustration or anger to hit–but it never did. Instead, I found myself nodding along with the criticisms. Agreeing.

The urge to fight back never reared its ugly head. Instead, the reviews became data. At my fingertips, for the first time, I had hundreds of comments. This quantity of feedback was simply inaccessible to me as an unpublished writer. It was valuable. Foreign eyes on a piece of writing can see things that an author would easily overlook. Our quirks. Our mistakes. Our patterns. It’s humbling, but it’s also helpful.

Of course, some comments were outliers, but there were clear trends. They gave me a better grasp on my own writing and the areas where I could do with improvement.

Not for this book of course. This book is finished, and there’s no chance of me going back to “fix things.” I’m realizing now that The Killing Spell is a time capsule of the kind of writer I was 3-5 years ago. The publishing process is so long that it’s become a snapshot of who I once was. A writer who was uncertain of her skills and her voice.

I’ve changed.

If I sat down to re-write The Killing Spell today, I’m not sure that I could. I still staunchly believe in its message and themes, but the writing itself, I’m less attached to. I see the flaws in it as much as my readers, but seeing those weaknesses doesn’t sting as much as I thought it would.

The reason for that is simple: I want to be better. I can be better.

And though I may not be able to repair the issues in The Killing Spell, I can commit to making future books stronger. Inevitably, I’ll go through the same process again. My next book will be a time capsule of who I am right now. In a year or two, when it’s published, I’m sure I’ll look back and see the errors in it that I missed this time around.

But there’s always the next, and the next, and next…

Isn’t that exciting?