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When a book is finished

Written by: Michael Gerber

Article Overview: It takes a long time to finish a book. Even after it’s done it isn’t finished. It lingers in you for a long, long time. Even then, after you think it’s gone, it isn’t.

When a book is finished

It takes a long time to finish a book. Even after it’s done it isn’t finished. It lingers in you for a long, long time. Even then, after you think it’s gone, it isn’t. There are all the things you didn’t say that you know you should have said. All the things you did say that you know you should have said differently. Even when a book is done it isn’t. There is such a longing to start it over again. Even after it is sent to the publisher it lingers in your mind and in your heart, in your imagination, like a long lost friend. And there is also the fact that you dread what the publisher is going to say when he reads what you’ve sent, this great piece of yourself, now laying out on his table all exposed to his critical eye, and eye that has looked at so many, so many other books. Books written by authors you have never known, do not want to know, resent for having taken the attention of the publisher away from your book, the only book that matters, the book you have put so much of yourself into, the book that is yourself. It is almost the same feeling as a man looking at your wife with such intimacy that it fires your feelings of jealousy, your possessiveness, which is what it feels like when I think of the publisher scrutinizing my book which I just sent to him. It is not making sense, of course. But it is true nonetheless. A book you have written is the most personal thing. It is never done because I am never done. It is me in all of its language, its passion, its color, its form, its direction. A book is nothing less than the one who writes it, and, because of that should never be sent anywhere as unfinished as I know that book to be. As unfinished as I am. Do you get what I mean?

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Article Tags: books books, critical eye, dread, feelings, heart, imagination, intimacy, jealousy, long long time, long lost friend, longing, passion, personal thing, possessiveness



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