I have a friend who is a prolific artist. Every wall in her modest home is covered with her art. She sells enough pieces to make a reasonable living, but the sales do not keep up with her ability to produce more original work. Visiting her home is like viewing an art gallery of colour and images born from her creativity.
"Some I can't sell," she tells me, "I love them too much. It's hard to let them go, but I have to if I want to keep painting."
She says her greatest worry is the homes and offices her pieces go to. What will become of them, she asks, if the owner passes or the business shuts down?
As a writer, I understand her concern. It takes a very long time to imagine, compose, and finish a novel. There is research, editing, refining, more editing, and choosing an artist for the cover. Then there's the pain of getting it out into the world and hoping that someone, somewhere, will like it enough to buy it. It's hard.
I don't write to sell, though I am deeply grateful to anyone who finds my books out there in the world of a gazillion writers and decides to take them home in physical or digital format. I write because my brain is constantly imagining a world I don't quite live in. I am compelled to write my stories down, and, until recently, I had been quite content to just let them pile up on my hard drive. Putting them out there is a little like my artist's friend letting her work go. What happens to the book that someone in Germany, or England, or France bought? Did they like it? Hate it? Did they drop it off at a used bookstore, throw it into the recycling bin, or add it to their shelf of favourite novels?
One never truly knows, but, like my friend, I have to let it go.