This is always a nail-biting but wonderful stage in the publication of a book, and every time feels like the first time. It's no longer just my story. Others are reading it and bringing their own life experience to the words and characters and it's becoming something different. Edmund Wilson, a literary critic and editor, said it best: "No two people ever read the same book." Which is one of the things that makes a book so exciting. It has an infinite number of incarnations, depending on who reads it, and yet there is always that shared experience too.
It's exhilarating when the story you worked on for so many months and sometimes years, is finally starting to look like the real thing--a book! Of course an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) is not the final product. It's a sneak peek. It's produced before the final final edits are complete, so there are mistakes and sometimes there are small changes in the story too. Very often even the cover is not the final cover, as is the case with Fox Forever. There will be some changes to that too. (But isn't it gorgeous already? I love it!)
I haven't really said too much to anyone what this final book is about, but the short synopsis is up on most bookselling sites. But for me in this final book, the world Matthew Fox spun into existence came full circle and it explored what it means to be human from multiple perspectives and from start to finish.
I must admit, it was a very satisfying but bittersweet moment as I typed the last words. I've spent a lot of time with Locke and Jenna and so many of the other characters too. It was hard to say goodbye.
Sneak peaks aside, this last book of the trilogy will be out on March 19--only a few months away!