When A Book No Longer Belongs To the Author....

Now this is something I had been warned about...once your book is out in the wide world, well, it's no longer really yours. Your book becomes the reader's book. They create a 'new' book by bringing their experience, reactions and emotions to it.

So now THE CORNISH HOUSE is beginning to wend it's way out into the world via the uncorrected proofs, I am in a state of unease.What are people thinking? Love it? Loathe it? Killing themselves laughing at the typos....there are a few humdingers in there...

DH has read the book - and thank God he loved it. He would say that, but I have also known him long enough and well enough to know if he was lying. The best bit about him reading the book was to finally be able to discuss it with him. When he finished the book he stared at me in shock and said...so this is what has been going on in your head...Umm, yup. He has had to look at me differently. He became caught up in the story and found it hard at time to remember it was his wife who wrote it. This, of course, is good.

It was also interesting to hear his thoughts as he knows the landscape of the book so well. He placed things in different locations, different pubs when I hadn't used a name, and responded to some characters and actions in an interesting manner. So he has proved a test case for me....

DH is not my first reader, but very few people have read the book...even some of closest writer friends haven't. I had never really thought about it. My mother has read it twice...helping with the typos and I think consumed by curiosity...what was her daughter saying. So DH is the first person to read it for pleasure without any other purpose....and now the list grows.....gulp. I need to let go and focus on the next book. I needs to be better than THE CORNISH HOUSE...the joys of being a writer....

How did/do you feel when you release a book into the world? As a reader do ever think that your version of the story will be different that of the writer's? I suppose in a way when a film is made of a book we experience this.....someone else's take on the 'our' book...