My Book is NOT My Baby

Thoughts on authorship and the limits of metaphors

I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind since, as some people have said, our book was “birthed” into the world. Although I know many authors embrace the analogy that a book is the author’s baby, as a woman with infertility, this analogy has never sat right with me. 

If you’ll indulge me, today I’d like to explore why.

Writing a book is kind of like having a baby. Except totally different.

First, let me say: I get why the analogy is so prevalent. 

You spend months, sometimes years, working on your book. Maybe you’ve dreamed of it since you were a child. While you’re writing it, you envision the life you will have once it exists in its final form. Going through the publishing process is incredibly vulnerable. You open yourself up to the ministrations of book professionals (like me) and pray that they are gentle as you labor to bring forth an idea that is a part of you. You are incredibly proud of it when it arrives; it feels like, for many people, the best thing you will ever create—as a baby is undoubtedly most parents’ best creation. 

Sometimes, books get started and never do make it out into the world, resulting in a kind of miscarriage of ideas that brings grief and sadness, creating a tender part in our hearts where that dream used to live. 

Author Megan Febuary has written beautifully about the parallels between birthing a book and birthing a baby, which you can read here. 

My friend Merideth (author of the wonderful book Artists for Joy) also shared with me this quote about writing from Madeleine L’Engle’s book Reflections on a Writing Life:

With each book you write you die, and you’re born again. That’s why I hate to be in between books. I feel unborn. I feel embryonic. All of our lives are a series of deaths and births. …The great act of creativity is always followed by a sadness. Some women after childbirth suffer badly from postpartum depression because each birthing is followed by a preparation, a period of preparation for rebirth.

Books and babies share the process, pangs, and pride of creation. There is much that they have in common. 

Birth is the ultimate act of creation; every other creative act is a pale imitation of birth. And that’s my point.

All metaphors have their limits.

The process of creation for a book is a crude shadow of the process involved in creating a baby. It’s a rough pencil sketch of a watercolor portrait. The two are not remotely the same.

As someone with infertility, who has now had a book but hasn’t had a deeply desired baby, let me tell you: As much as I love Hungry Authors, I would trade it in a heartbeat for something that has a heartbeat. If the universe offered me a cosmic choice—book or baby—there is no question in my mind what I would pick. And I know my coauthor Liz wouldn’t begrudge me. She’d be right there with me.

The irony of having my book launch party—a celebration of the “birth” of my book—on my 35th birthday—the critical “cliff” in a woman’s life at which fertility rates start to drop dramatically—was not lost on me. In fact, while part of me was excited about the festivities and seeing friends and family, another part of me was also mourning that day. If I haven’t been able to have a baby up to this point, during my peak fertility years, the chances of me having one now are even worse. Trust me, if I could have traded it all in that moment for a baby, I would have.

Although I know it’s not intended this way, in my worst moments, the insinuation that my book is my baby cuts deep. As if I should be happy with my childless life now that I’ve authored a book. As if having a book takes away my infertility.

I know how deeply felt the dream of becoming an author is—and I know that for some people, not becoming an author is also painful. It feels like part of your very identity is being denied. Trust me, I do know what that feels like. And yet, the pain of not having a baby is not the same as the pain of not having a book. Jennie Agg, author of Life, Almost, wrote about this in “A child is not a kitchen extension.” If this topic is interesting to you, I highly recommend Jennie’s work!

Here’s why the two are different. Because if you are not an author and you deeply feel in your core that you are meant to be an author—you have the power to accomplish that. You have choice. You have agency. Even with all of the red tape and gatekeepers of the publishing industry—they can’t stop you from being an author if you really want to be one. You can save money to pay for assisted self-publishing or hybrid publishing. You can take classes. You can upload a word document to Kindle Direct Publishing today, right now and be an author. Nothing and no one can stop you. This is part of the whole message of Hungry Authors. 

In contrast, I cannot similarly make myself a mother. No matter how deeply I feel that I am meant to be a mom, it is not within my willpower to make it happen. I’ve tried.

Babies can’t be willed into being. Books can.

Jennie Agg writes:

It’s also a useful distinction over and above talking about ‘choice’. I didn’t choose my miscarriages. Whether I have another child or another pregnancy loss is not within my power to control or change. I cannot work harder at my fertility status. It can’t be achieved with just a bit more grit or ingenuity. I cannot put aside a little bit of extra money each month in the vain hope of saving up for it, one day. I cannot polish my CV or re-train for it. I cannot buy a cheaper version of the effortless fertility I covet. There is no Pinterest hack for this.

I know what you’re thinking… “But you can adopt. You can foster.” 

Yes, those are definitely good options, and we are pursuing them. But as my husband and I have learned all too well… to pursue fostering or adoption is, fundamentally, to put your hopes and dreams for a family in someone else’s hands. There are home studies, applications, background checks, payments, hours upon hours of trainings, waiting periods, matching processes, and other red tape, policies, and restrictions in place (for good reason!) that make it appropriately prohibitive to have a baby any other way than the biological way. 

And moreover, this is nothing compared to the initial trauma that happens every time a baby is separated from its biological parents—and every time parents are separated from their children, whether by infertility, miscarriage, death, or legal separation. While we plan to adopt children who need a family and for whatever reason cannot be reunited with their biological family, we realize that adoption is a necessary and good intervention for both sides, not the ideal situation from the start. For some people, this intervention may not be wanted or feasible.

You cannot will your way to a baby, no matter how much you want one. And wanting a baby does not necessarily make you a good candidate for adoption or fostering.

It’s way, way easier to have a book than it is to have a baby.

And let’s not forget that books are products made for other people’s consumption.

I remember once when an author asked me, “Will you be my book doula?” Although I hope she couldn’t tell over Zoom, I physically recoiled at these words.

I’ve heard other editors call themselves “book doulas” or “book midwives,” but that is a hard pass for me. 

I love babies—there’s almost no baby that I wouldn’t want to hold and rock and hang out with, colicky or not. I think each baby is precious and unique and wonderfully made. But as an editor, I feel very differently about the books that I help to bring into the world. I have to evaluate books and make judgments about books and subject books to a rigorous winnowing process. I don’t believe that every idea deserves to be a book.

Books are products, and my job is to help make the user (reader) experience of the product as enjoyable and close to what the author intends as possible. Babies are inherently valuable in and of themselves, for no other reason than the fact that they exist, full stop. Comparing a book to a baby is like trying to compare a piece of computer software to a butterfly. It just doesn’t work. Their purposes in life are completely different.

Maybe I just don’t get it.

Maybe I’m wrong about all of this. Maybe all of the moms reading this are thinking, “She just doesn’t understand.” Maybe, if I ever experience pregnancy and childbirth, I’ll look back at this post and think, “I was so wrong! I had no idea how similar babies and books are!” That may be.

But here’s what I do know… I feel very differently about my book than I do about my foster kids. And not all metaphors work for all people.

Happy Friday,

Ariel