Several days after I published my first novel Hiking In, I felt lousy and was out-of-sorts. I wasn’t ill. I hadn’t participated in any overly vigorous exercise. I chalked it up to having a few ‘not great’ days. Almost a month later, a reader generously notified me that in the novel's Author Notes, I had a misspelling. Somehow ‘Chilkoot Pass’ had been changed to ‘Chill-out Pass.’
I was embarrassed and upset. I had done my professional due diligence, plus, I went through that novel line by line several times, and yet, there was a big glaring mistake. I berated myself about professional missteps and inadequacy. I miscalculated and wasn’t ready for this level of exposure. When I go into this darker part of my mind, one of the ways I begin to back out is I pretend someone is in my situation, and I’m talking to them. I’d say things like: Nothing is perfect. There are thousands of words in a book, and there’s bound to be a mistake. Mistakes happen, and this one is not world-ending. You’re building a new skill set, and that takes effort.
I also recognized that in my earlier feelings post-publication, I had experienced a vulnerability hangover. As I continue on this creative path, I need to add more strategies to my writing process, include ways to soothe my heart and head, and know that I may have a vulnerability hangover each time I publish a novel. I also went into the book file and fixed the mistake, and resubmitted the revised book to the various stores. It makes me laugh that within the incorrect words, there was an excellent directive to ‘chill out.’