I’ve been asked recently by a friend whether my relationship with reading has changed—now that I’m officially a Published Author in capital letters.
Yes.
That’s the bare bones answer. Yes—by all the salty tears in heaven—yes. And like most of the other nitty-gritty practicalities of the publishing career, I never saw it coming.
What do I mean by ‘it’? I mean the internal voices that now kick into life whenever I open a book. Before I wrote for a living, I used to do a nose dive into a story and remain there in a happy wallow until I’d read the final sentence. Now, I’m on the other side, not the receiver but the giver of the word. That’s quite a sea change. I still read, but as I do, I’m often engaged in a one-sided conversation with the author.
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