Eeek!

On April 30th this year I was a nervous wreck. My debut novel, ‘Forgotten’ was due to be released the following day. I’d spent most of the previous three or four weeks fluctuating between excitement and anxiety. I was worried that nobody would read it, that people would read it and hate it and that friends and family would read it and feel embarrassed to talk to me about it because they thought it was so bad. But I was excited that it was going to be ‘out there’ and that a few complete strangers might buy it and actually like it.

The response to ‘Forgotten’ was much, much better than I could ever have imagined. People bought it, people liked it and people said nice things about it (mostly) in reviews.

My second novel, ‘Fracture’, is due to be released by Bloodhound Books tomorrow (28th October). I thought it might be easier the second time, that I might know what to expect and that I might feel better prepared. Nope. I’m still a bag of nerves. All those doubts from April have resurfaced. I am better prepared though. I’m in contact with bloggers and reviewers and Helen, the publicist at Bloodhound, arranged a radio interview for me. She has also set up a blog tour starting tomorrow.

So why am I so nervous?

It’s partly because, until the ARCs (advance reading copies) went out, only three people had read ‘Fracture’ in its current form – Betsy at Bloodhound, Clare, my editor, and me. My partner read a previous draft and gave me some helpful feedback and I submitted a section of it as an assessment for a creative writing course, but I haven’t shared any of it with friends and family. Then there’s that niggling voice in the back of my head that’s wondering if ‘Forgotten’ was a ‘one-off’ and everything else that I write will be rubbish.

I know I’m not alone in feeling like this. Fellow authors claim that it never really gets better and that there’s always that mixture of anxiety and anticipation before publication day. At the moment the anxiety is far outweighing the excitement though.

And I’m sure I’ll feel much worse in the morning!