A LETTER TO MY UNPUBLISHED SELF: YAEL MAREE

By YAEL MAREE

Dear me,

The ink is not yet dried on the page, and already you want to send it to every agent and publisher in town. Simultaneously, you cringe at the idea that anyone might read your words; your insides churn with the prospect of success, whatever that means.

You are a chaser of dreams, and you should always keep chasing but remember to slow down. I know you find it hard, but savour these moments for they will come to mean so much, and when you blink, you will miss them.

Celebrate the typing of those two magical words, “THE END,” and stop playing down this grand achievement. It was you who typed out all those words, who stayed up nights and drowned in copious amounts of coffee (this will not change even when you are published). It was your limbs which cried out in discomfort after hours in the chair, it was you who cringed and rolled your eyes at your words and rewrote and rewrote until you realised that he did not in fact walk, he sauntered into that room.

Celebrate each syllable and word, each full stop and comma, for they were yours.

Take a moment to cherish the day that contract shows up in your email box, celebrate it harder, make it bigger and thrive because you deserve to feel this way.

Stop feeling sheepish about telling everyone you wrote a book. Shout it from the rooftops for who will want to read a book they know nothing about? Believe in yourself, find your own worth because this book, it will be published and read and loved. All the work all the broken pieces of yourself you left on those pages will be seen.

Let the world still for a moment when that first copy arrives at your doorstep. Be overwhelmed, laugh or cry or dance or sit or do shots, let it all sink in.

I know you are afraid. I know that letting your work go into the world is petrifying but be excited, for amazing things are ahead. Your friends, family and total strangers will read your words, and they will praise you. Let their words soothe your fear. But remember you can’t please everyone, don’t take it to heart.

Slow down, and relish opportunities that come your way, cherish the small things because later they will become the big things. Keep putting words on paper because that’s what you love, keep chasing those dreams because they will come true, sooner than you realise.

Love,

Me

Hailing from Melbourne Australia, mother of three, Yael Maree loves reading, writing and learning about language and culture. Yael’s debut novel When We Vanish is a delightful tale of a relationship tested by fear, love, rejection, and the desire of two individuals to be seen for who they truly are. Find her on Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub and Goodreads.

Buy her book here.