This post was originally sent through my author newsletter on May 19th, 2023. To subscribe to my newsletter and receive up-to-date news, musings, and more, click HERE.
Last week, a friend messaged me that she was reading How It Feels to Fly. I was positively thrilled to hear it! My second published book holds a very special place in my heart, and it never really found a wide audience. As this friend was reading, she updated me a few times on where she was in the story. And as I read her updates, I got the strangest urge:
I kind of wanted to reread my own book.
I haven't read How it Feels to Fly, in full, since probably 2015. That would have been when I did my final proofreading pass before the book was sent to print. I read excerpts of it, sure—at readings and signings, or when I needed to double-check how I'd written something to talk about the story for promotional purposes—but I never reread the entire book.
Each book in an author's career is a snapshot of the moment in time in which it was written. I have grown and changed a lot over the past decade, and there are things I would do differently if I wrote either The Distance Between Lost and Found or How It Feels to Fly today. I'm a better writer, for starters. I approach my craft with even more care. But also, my mindset on some topics has evolved. And the world is a different place. And the publishing industry has changed.
Looking back—rereading something that's technically finished but could be better—can honestly be a bit frustrating.
On top of that, in the case of a book that "underperformed" (which How It Feels to Fly did, per my publisher), there's an ever-present wonder: could I have written a more marketable version of this idea? Hindsight is 20/20—and hindsight loves to tell me that, if I'd done a few things differently, I might have had the YA ballet book of the mid-2010s that got turned into a Netflix series. (Shout-out to Tiny Pretty Things!)
For all of those reasons (and probably others I haven't thought of), most authors I know don't often reread their work, once it's been published.
The Class Critters books have been an exception to this rule, because I've been reading them to my daughter. Do I think what got printed is perfect? No. There are sentences I stumble over and wish I could rewrite. Plot points I could sharpen. But overall, I am happy with the finished product. I'm proud of those books, even upon rereading.
Would I feel the same about How It Feels to Fly, were I to give in to my urge to reread it now? I sure hope so.
(Sidebar: yes, sometimes older books can be edited and reissued. That's not going to happen for me and my books...unless I become wildly famous sometime in the next few years! So, um, get on that, fans... ;)
Even as we promote our published work, authors have to keep looking forward. We have to keep chasing the next opportunity. The next title our readers will fall in love with. The next potential bestseller. The next story that will consume us until we've made it exist, wrenching it from nothing onto a printed page.
The biggest piece of advice on what to do while you're waiting for one book to publish (or even to be considered for publication) is always "Write the next book." Look forward, not back.
But I still feel that urge to reread How It Feels to Fly. I'm pretty far removed from the early days of my career, when that book's "underperformance" felt like the end of everything. And it might be interesting to revisit that version of myself, that particular snapshot in time (which is itself a snapshot, in many ways, of my teenage years). And maybe, sometimes, it's useful to remind yourself of how you've grown. How far you've come.
If you're an author, do you ever go back and reread your early books? If you're a creator, do you like to revisit past projects? Or do you keep your eyes forward?
~Kathryn
What I'm:
Reading: A few historical romance novels that appeared in my library queue all at once, after being on hold for many weeks!
Watching: My husband and I have started "Silo" on AppleTV+. It's a sci-fi story with humans living in an enormous bunker, unable to go outside...or can they? Are they being kept in the silo for a reason? I haven't read the books the series is based on, so I can't speak to it as an adaptation, but two episodes in I am pretty intrigued by the story and the mystery.
Loving: Spending a chill Mother's Day with my kiddo and husband. Brunch and playground for the win!