I actually did the thing.
Almost Yours Again is listed on Amazon. As of tonight, it is a real book that real people can find, click on, and buy. I have been staring at the listing for the last twenty minutes like it might disappear if I look away.
I don’t entirely know how to feel about this. Proud? Terrified? Both at the same time in a way that is making my chest do something weird? Yes. All of that. Simultaneously.
Here’s the thing about writing for as long as I have — and I have been at this for a very long time, long enough that I’m not going to put the number in writing because it will make me feel ancient — you get comfortable living inside the work. The writing is yours. The characters are yours. The story happens in your head and on your screen and it belongs entirely to you, and that is a deeply comfortable place to be. Nobody can tell you it isn’t good enough when it’s still just a document on your hard drive.
Uploading it to Amazon tonight felt like opening my front door and shoving one of my cats out into the street and saying off you go then, make your own way in the world.
(For the record, none of my actual fifteen cats are going anywhere. They are all fine. This is a metaphor.)
The book is Avery Beckett’s — that’s the name on the cover — but the sleep I’m going to lose over it is entirely mine. Every writer who has ever hit publish knows this particular brand of stomach-drop. You spend all this time making something, and then you let it go, and then it’s just… out there. In the world. Without you.
What if nobody finds it?
What if somebody finds it and hates it?
What if somebody finds it and loves it and wants more, and then I have to actually deliver more? (Okay, that one I can handle. I have notes. I have so many notes.)
I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. And tonight I did it. The book exists in the world in a way it didn’t exist this morning, and that is not nothing. That is actually something quite enormous.
And just in case that wasn’t enough chaos for one brain, I should mention that Avery Beckett is only one of three active pseudonyms currently taking up residence in my head. Three. Distinct. Voices. All with their own worlds, their own characters, their own very strong opinions about where their stories are going. You might think that sounds confusing. You could possibly be right.
What this means in practice is that the Avery universe alone currently runs to forty books. Forty. The first ten are written, edited, and ready to go — which means I have somehow committed to one book a month for the next ten months. I’m genuinely unsure whether that’s impressive or certifiable. Possibly both. Probably both.
So. Almost Yours Again is out there now, finding its feet, looking for its people. I’m sitting here with a cup of tea going cold beside me and a publishing schedule that would make a sensible person lie down in a dark room. Proud and terrified in equal measure.
Mostly proud.
If you happen to find the book out there in the wild—thank you. For looking. For clicking. For even considering it. That matters more than I can quite put into words yet.
The cats love me unconditionally and ask no questions about release schedules. This is very important right now.
Ask me again in the morning.
thestationhousenotebook 