After months of writing, revising, and imagining Mateo’s next journey, Book Two is no longer just a manuscript. It is a published book.
Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
— Proverbs 16:3 KJV
Last Monday, I wrote that the story doesn't wait.
Apparently, it wasn't kidding.
At the time, I was still talking about Book Two as the story Mateo and I were traveling through together.
There were chapters to finish.
Pictures to choose.
Sentences to reconsider.
Corrections to make.
And probably a camel or two that needed to be moved somewhere else.
Then something changed.
It's a book.
That shouldn't feel surprising.
After all, that was the plan.
You write a book so that eventually it becomes...a book.
But there is a strange moment when a manuscript stops being something you're working on and becomes something you're releasing into the world.
For months, Book Two lived on my computer.
I could change anything.
A sentence.
A paragraph.
A picture.
A chapter.
If something bothered me, I could go back and fix it.
And I did.
More than once.
Probably more than I care to remember.
But eventually there comes a point when you have to stop.
Not because you've suddenly decided that every word is perfect.
Not because you couldn't find one more sentence to adjust if you looked hard enough.
You stop because the story is ready.
And then you press Publish.
This time, I pressed it more than once.
On Amazon:
The English paperback.
The English ebook.
The Spanish paperback.
The Spanish ebook.
And on Lulu:
The English paperback.
The English ebook.
The Spanish paperback.
The Spanish ebook.
Eight editions across two publishing platforms in two days.
Suddenly, Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word — Book Two wasn't sitting on my computer waiting for another correction.
It was a published book.
And its Spanish companion, Mateo y los Secretos de la Palabra Eterna — Libro Dos, was right there beside it.
There is something both satisfying and slightly unsettling about that moment.
As long as the manuscript belongs to you, you control it.
Once you publish it, you begin letting go.
Someone else can open it.
Someone else can meet the characters.
Someone else can walk beside Mateo through the world you've spent months creating.
And someone else can notice the typo you somehow missed after reading the page seventeen times.
That's publishing. 🙂
I think there is a lesson in that which reaches beyond books.
There are times when careful work matters.
There are times when correcting, improving, and trying again matter.
But there also comes a time when continuing to polish something can become another way of being afraid to release it.
Eventually, you have to say:
This is what I made.
And let it go.
Proverbs tells us to commit our works unto the Lord.
I like that word commit.
It doesn't say everything we do will be perfect.
It doesn't promise that everyone will notice what we've done.
It doesn't even tell us what will happen afterward.
There comes a point when the work leaves our hands.
Book Two has reached that point.
The characters who spent all those months living inside my computer now have somewhere else to go.
Abraham.
Sarah.
Isaac.
Rebecca.
Jacob.
And, of course, Mateo.
Last Monday, Mateo and I were still traveling.
This Monday, something has changed.
Book Two is traveling without us.
Which leaves only one question.
Where do we go next?
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