Post-Partum Author - Blog (April 2025)

For the past week and a bit, I've been feeling like a new parent. Though I'm a guy, I feel like I've taken on the role as ‘mother’ due to pushing a book out of my uterus. Of course ‘uterus’ is a metaphor for publishing.

The Chasm Between Us was born into the world on 1st April 2025, measuring up to be a healthy book. Excitedly, friends and family sent me their congratulations on the successful delivery of my baby. It slept well the first night, but the following night of its existence it barely slept, therefore I lay awake for a while, my heart swelling with pride but deep inside wishing for it to at least wait until dawn before it demanded attention.

I wonder if that's how many debut authors feel like in the first few days following their baby's release - a mixture of surrealness, a giddy sense of joy and a knuckle of fear for the future of the wee little thing. What challenges might it face from reviewers and readers? Will it be able to fund any of my retirement? Most importantly, will it make a difference in the world where it is just a drop in the ocean that is thousands of books being published every year?

I can't help but compare pregnancy to the whole process of writing a book. Being a young male, of course I've never been pregnant. Duh! But I know the basics, so I find it humorous to find similarities between the two.

Conceiving an idea is to imagine the possibility of having a child. Putting pen to paper is to conceive of the thing, and perhaps by chapter one is when the sermon has penetrated the egg. Delightful!

We'll say that the first draft is when the baby is growing in secret and not even the mother knows she's pregnant. The penny drops at the same time the author realises they want to pursue writing for publication. During this time, they think of different names for their child, what values and morals they'd teach them, who they might look like.

Getting beta readers to give feedback and editors, assessors, etcetera are like check-ups with the midwife. The tedious part comes when the effects of book-pregnancy are at its worst: morning sickness/exhaustion; incapable of doing certain routines/writer’s block; creating room in the budget for the new baby/budgeting for service costs like editing and assessing and cover design.

Then...after a while, you're almost at the end and you meet the midwife who tells you roughly what week the baby is expected and how the delivery procedure will work - that's like talking to the publishers haha! They show you images of the baby inside the womb - that's your cover design and drafts of the interior!

Then release day happens and that's when the baby is out and so is the book and all the emotions wash over you!

Like any other book parent, I have aspirations for the paper child, and I know it won't grow up to be king, but if it's just something that is of help and touches others, then I'm all for it.

One final thought as I finish writing this blog post: there are hundreds of outcomes the book could've had, but the sperm that got to the egg first was… The Chasm Between Us, part-love story, part-overcoming challenges.