Something happened in the writing of my book blurb. Something profound.
I have, in the last few months, been caught up in editing, page proofing, approving book covers and becoming a dot.com in preparation for the launch of my first fiction book.
The copy edit was intense and those who know me on Facebook would have heard me groan about having to go over and over my words.
Yet the synopsis was written by someone else and the first time I saw it was on the publisher’s website listing the February releases. While I cringed at the over use of adjectives, which is standard for a book blurb, there was a line summarising the book that floored me.
’Losing February, describes, in sometimes disturbing graphic detail, what happens when a strong energetic, capable woman in her early 40s completely loses her sense of herself and mistakes grief for punishment.’
Wham. That line hit me hard.
‘ . . . mistakes grief for punishment.’
That is exactly why I had written this book but I didn’t know that — I hadn’t understood that — until I read that line.
I don’t know the name of the person who ‘got it’ but I’d like to find out and thank them.
In my mind, there were many reasons why I had written this story but I hadn’t articulated it in such a concise way. There it was. The Truth, with a capital T.
Losing February isn’t published until next year.
I am excited and terrified all at once. It is out of my hands yet still so much a part of me.
The cure: start another book, writer friends tell me.
But I am still processing what I have learnt in writing this one, and I still haven’t let go.
But I’m close.
Very close.
