What comes after This Wasn’t Meant to Happen

The post-publication weeks (PPW) after you launch a book are strange ones. A bit like Twixmas - that in-between stretch after Christmas and before the New Year - they can be a welcome relief from all the fuss and fanfare of publication. A time to reset: to hunker down with books and blankets, to hibernate even, before preparing for whatever comes next: new beginnings, a new year, maybe even a new book.

But while Twixmas, in my experience, requires little more than long walks, excellent books, roaring fires, and bountiful supplies of chocolate and cheese, PPW calls for something sturdier. Something more supportive. PPW requires major PPE.

Not the hard-hat or high-vis kind, but the invisible kind - the kind that protects your heart and anchors your values when the noise stops. When the promotion winds down, the articles have all been published, the interviews dry up, the podcasts and events are done, and the early flood of reviews slows to a gentle drip. The PPE an author needs during these weeks is made of perspective - a grounded sense of why you did it all in the first place.

You then face a bookish version of empty nest syndrome. After years of nurturing this creation, you have to let it live its life away from you. Fulfil its own purpose without really knowing if it’s doing so. That’s when you have to trust that what you’ve given was enough.

With it gone, you wake up and feel a little lost. Your “home” - or in this case, your head - is empty. There’s no urgent to-do list, no event to prepare for, no inbox full of requests. Just this sense of space and silence. And that’s when the questions arrive: What now? Who am I without this book? Why did I do all this in the first place? Was it worth it? Has it been a success? And perhaps the hardest question of all - how do I define success anyway?

Writers are, by nature, highly sensitive dreamers. Exposing ourselves to opinion and criticism is hard. We are our own harshest audience, yet we’re also hopeful visionaries with big imaginations and therefore big dreams for ourselves - and our books: bestseller lists, awards, film rights, adaptations… they’ve all crossed our minds at some point, probably even before we ever signed a book deal.

When reality hits and those things don’t happen - which, most often, they don’t (whatever you may see on social media) - we have to work out what success means for us personally. Why we do what we do. And if we’re sensible, we quickly realise that it has to be different from other authors’ reasons for writing, or their definitions of success. Not better, just different. I’ve been to many a book launch, coffee catch-up, and book camp with author friends where one might be celebrating selling film rights, another is lamenting being ghosted by their agent, someone else is devastated about not having a contract renewed, while another has just been picked for Reese’s Book Club. And most of us know we could be one step away from any one of them.

The truth is, even when those milestones do come, they can feel oddly hollow. From personal experience, Sunday Times Bestseller listings (which I had with both Miracle on Regent Street and The First Last Kiss are a fleeting thrill, quickly replaced by the hope of climbing even higher next time. Friends who’ve had books chosen for major book clubs are often crushed to find sales of their next one stalling; film options never become films; book deals not renewed.

So what if, like me, you knew from that your book would never hit commercial heights at all? My ambitions didn’t actually extend to accolades, awards, even a supermarket placement… although, don’t get me wrong - I still absolutely imagined that eponymous Reese Witherspoon book club sticker on my cover. A girl’s got to dream, right? (And yes, obviously, we became best friends in my dream, too.)

But this book was always about purpose, not plaudits. From the very beginning, I’d clearly defined my own measure of success: I wanted it to reach those living through baby loss, or loving someone who was. I wanted them to open it and feel less alone. If even a few more people came to understand the landscape of this particular grief, it would have done its job. That, to me, would be success.

I knew it wouldn’t be an easy sell - not to publishers (and it wasn’t - you can read about that here) and not to booksellers either, and perhaps not even to book buyers. But I hoped that if I spoke about the book, and about baby loss itself, enough (which I think I did!), others might start to speak about it too. That they might read it, share it, and in doing so, help it become the quiet kind of success I had always hoped for - one that makes a difference, in its own small way.

Even the fact that it exists feels significant. Because now, no one has to search fruitlessly, as I once did, for a novel that explores the impact of baby loss with honesty and care.

That clarity became my compass throughout the entire journey. It gave meaning to the writing, the weeks of promotion, and - most importantly - this in-between season I’m in now.

On this journey, I’ve discovered that having a purpose beyond other people’s opinions brings a huge amount of freedom, fulfilment and gratitude. Once those conventional goals are stripped away, so is the pressure to perform. And what’s left is the work itself - and the quiet pride of having made something authentic, true, necessary.

Now, as the quiet settles in, and I have a chance to sit and reflect on these past few months and years of work, I’m immersing myself in the joys of autumn - reading (obviously!), long dog walks, baking (currently obsessed with spiced pumpkin cake and scones) cooking hearty, heart-warming casseroles … I have time to work out who I am as a writer from here - what stories I want to tell next, and why.

You could say I’ve reached an emotional and creative clearing.

In this calm, in-between place, I feel a mix of pride, relief, and a kind of gentle, welcome disorientation.

I know the quiet isn’t the end; it’s the start of something just as important - the moment the book begins to live its own life. It’s the part where it meets the world without me beside it: no more explaining, supporting, or celebrating. Just letting it be.

It’s humbling to realise that while I’m folding laundry, walking the dog, or binge-watching Celebrity Traitors and Nobody Wants This (because really, who isn’t?), my book is out there - being discovered, interpreted, maybe even loved - by people I’ll never meet.

I see some of them through kind messages, social posts, or Amazon reviews (87 so far, and counting!). But there are many more I’ll never know about - readers who will meet this story quietly, privately, and make it part of their own lives. And to know the book is out there, connecting with people I’ll never meet, feels like the greatest privilege of all.

That thought - that the book can exist beyond me - has made this stillness feel less like loss and more like expansion. The story that once filled every corner of my mind now belongs to others. That’s the quiet miracle of creating something: it is absolutely meant to outgrow you.

Of course, I love it when someone sends a kind message telling me how much the book meant, or when a new review appears. But I’ve realised that letting go doesn’t mean detachment. It’s not an ending. It’s a new beginning. This book, and the story at its heart, will always be part of me. Poppy is sewn into my soul. I’ll always be a baby-loss mother, and I’ll always find ways to speak about it - in fiction, in articles, in essays, here, in the quiet spaces where people are willing to listen, and in one very special way, which I’ll share more about soon…

But having carved a permanent space for writing and talking about baby loss in my life, I also know there’s now room for something else - I have ideas that have been waiting patiently in the wings. And now my head feels lighter, the question of what next? doesn’t scare me anymore; it excites me.

I feel ready to write again - not out of pressure or expectation, but out of curiosity and joy. This book changed me as a writer. It reminded me what words can do when they come from truth and purpose. Whatever comes next, I want it to honour that - to bring light, hope, maybe even joy, but always with meaning at its heart.

This book will always be one of my proudest achievements. It doesn’t need lists or prizes to prove its worth. Its success is already written, in the quiet connections, the conversations, and the comfort it’s brought to others already. And it will continue to do that quietly, without me, in ways I can’t even begin to know about.

Funnily enough, just as I was writing this very post, a friend messaged me from Australia to say her copy had just arrived - shipped all the way from the UK because she couldn’t wait until December 30 when she would be able to buy it over there.

In Australia? Reader, I hadn’t even known it was going to be published there!

My book is going to travel to the other side of the world…. the thought blows my mind. And that it will be on the cusp of the New Year feels even more fitting.

New beginnings for the book that started from purpose, not ambition and that will has travel further than I could ever imagine - or will know.
It’s a small, unexpected reminder that even when you think the story has reached its final page, the journey is only just beginning.

So maybe that’s what this in-between season is for: to give space to the quiet hope that something you made will keep finding its way into other people’s hearts, long after you’ve let it go.