Or sending your loved ones out into the wide world. 
The book is written. It’s printed, it’s out there. Now it’s time to market, to Facebook, Tweet, Instagram and do everything and anything you can to promote your great work. It’s easy at first, or at least I get carried away on a wave of adrenaline and excitement and then gradually it all peters out.
I know I shouldn’t. I know I should keep up its profile, but by then I’ve got another project on the go. There’s a story that’s clamouring to be told and once that happens, like a neglectful mother I forget about the previous offspring and concentrate all my efforts on the new one.
What’s done is done. Like an adult child it no longer needs me. It has its own life that will go on even when I’m not here anymore. It no longer belongs to me in any shape of form.
Sometimes I’m surprised by coming across a story that I don’t remember having written. Once it looked as if I might have to take a part in a play that I had written and I couldn’t learn the words.
Does anyone else react to their work like this, I wonder? Or am I only the one?
As for the image at the top of the blog. I tried out various forms of goodbye, but settled for a path out into the sunlight, because that’s where I want my work to be. In the light, enjoying itself and being enjoyed by my readers too.
Misha Herwin 