The more I write myself and the longer I work with other authors, the more I realize how much we take books for granted.
It's easy to do because books are everywhere.
But the thing is that each book represents a portion of a writer's life, maybe a large portion. I've known people who have spent years working on a single book, trying to get the words right, hoping that their efforts find at least one reader who is touched by the fruits of their labors.
Authors are a peculiar breed of cat, infected with a wide-ranging sense of impending doom, a fear that their words will go unread, that their words aren't good enough, certain that they have missed the mark at which they aimed when they began their book's journey so long ago.
And for authors the start of a project, even if it is only weeks or months in the past, is an eternity ago, a time when their world view was so different than it is now. For them it is as if each day of life renders prior words they have written obsolete, pedestrian.
That's a big part of the reason writers give up before they reach the end, or why having typed "The End," they hide their work in a drawer.
So when you see a finished work of art in the form of a novel, or non-fiction book, please do the writer a favor and don't take it for granted. Not every book will be your cup of tea, but it's someone's pride and joy, their baby, maybe even their only child.
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