Book Baby

Nine months from today, my debut novel, London Undone, will be released. Octavia Reese and I were discussing that fact while recording our Stalled podcast, and we simultaneously shouted, “It’s a book baby!” A long conversation ensued, involving such pregnancy metaphors as “Your baby is now the size of a pea,” and planning a book baby shower.

We aren’t the first authors to draw on the similarities between conceiving a child and conceiving a story. A lot of work, care, planning, pain, and joy go into both situations. At some point you’re going to be so ridiculously happy that it feels like you’re living a dream, and at some point you’re going to be struck with the panic of certainty that you can’t do this.

I’ve lived through both of those emotions, plus approximately 133 other ones. I processed through them all when I had the flash of an idea about London Undone and began to write, and again when I began working on sending her to agents and publishers. Here I am again, at the start of another countdown (cue 80’s Final Countdown montage).

Right now, my baby is the size of my thoughts and ideas, and all the time put into her by the people who have and will help me make her the best she can be. I can’t wait to see how the little nugget grows.