I do something today, every release day, call it a tradition.

It is so easy to get caught up in the ‘process’ as a book nears publication and then appears. An author lucky enough to be in-demand to some degree shifts from being a creator to being a marketing person. The book shifts from being a book towards being ‘the product’.

I get it, it is entirely necessary, but I like to take release day to step back a bit, if only for part of the morning. I bring a coffee and close the study door and after this post is done I’m going to sit and read through parts of River of Stars.

I want to remember the moments when – over three years ago – I was starting to think about a book inspired by the Song Dynasty. Wondering if I could, or should, venture back into Chinese history, a completely different era. Aware of just how much research would be involved, conscious of how hugely different the arc of the Song was, compared to the earlier Tang Dynasty that gave rise to Under Heaven. Beginning to glimpse and be daunted by the nature of that challenge.

I’ll remember (I’m remembering now) the earliest reading, correspondence, note-taking,notes to myself, names, character ideas, motifs I wanted to be sure to use … the long quiet of research. Then the recurring, necessary nagging voice, a year or so later, pointing out in my head that research was all very well but …

So, starting to write, feeling my way in to characters and settings and voices. I recall telling my older son that at that early stage I felt like someone entering a forest holding a light that only illuminated a little way ahead. (Is that why Daiyan goes into the forest so early? Probably not: I’ve felt that way with every book. Not enough light, not as smart as I needed to be.)

Then, in every novel, for me, there’s a period, usually about halfway through or a little more, when I am so appallingly tired of the book. Aware I’ve been working on it for what feels forever -brood, write, revise, repeat – and there is still so far to go and it is probably no good, anyhow. I can conjure that feeling up again right now.

But on the flip side, there comes the sensation that emerges towards the end when, despite all the anxiety associated with trying to make the ending work (I feel very good about the ending of River of Stars) I have become aware, even if I don’t want to jinx myself by admitting it, that this particular book will get done and … maybe it is strong, after all.

And so this morning I’ll page through it, rereading some passages, remembering how many times I read and revised them, right through the proofreading stage (I wrote about that in this Journal, how much I rely on the tolerance of the production people!).

Basically, I try to turn it back into a book for part of a morning. Into, if you’ll forgive me, something I wanted to be a work of art, to the best of my own ability, to shape something that might have a chance to last. (I have written about this dream/wish/desire of all artists before, most directly in the Sarantine books.)

But the paradox enters, and it isn’t a bad thing, it is just … part of what is involved. In order to endure, to have a chance at that, a book needs to find readers. Only that way can enough people decide this is really good. And start talking about it, writing about it, thinking about it after closing the last page, giving it a chance at a longer life in a culture that gets rid of things fast.

So we come back to how much depends on the marketing and publicity people, their talent, commitment to the work (sometimes love for it), their ideas, and a writer needs to (or should, to my mind) support them, be part of that team.

After that, it is over to the readers. Which is where today comes in, as we begin.

River of Stars launches this morning. I hope you enjoy it. Actually, to confide, and be really honest, I hope for more than that. I hope it becomes important to you.