The Birth of a Book, the Making of a Grandmother
By the last week of summer, the suitcase I used to carry my books from event to event had finally burst at the seams. It had rolled over parking-lot gravel, bookstore thresholds, into elevators in assisted-living communities and libraries, and in and out of my car's trunk. Inside were copies of the book I had been showing off to the world like a newborn.
Writers often call a new release a book baby, and this time the phrase felt less cute than true. The book had needed feeding, tending, carrying, explaining, and defending. It woke me up at night before it existed and kept me on a strict schedule, rearranging my traditional summer calendar. It made me proud and tired in equal measure.
Then, smack in the middle of the summer, another baby arrived. A real one, my first grandchild. I knew he was coming, so I had left a couple of weeks vacant on my calendar. However, I didn't know I wouldn't be able to see him until a month later because he spent his first weeks in the NICU. Nevertheless, when I finally met him, it was magical. Then my heart had to make room again. Another grandson arrived three months early, making me a grandmother twice in one summer.
A book tour has a schedule to follow, but the birth of a baby does not
A summer book tour moves by calendar dates that can be changed if necessary, but my grandbabies moved at their own pace. One in no rush to meet the world. The other couldn't get here fast enough.
The book baby events warmed my heart, but the grandbabies became my heart.
Staying focused on the book baby definitely helped keep my mind off some of the fears that crossed it while the grandbabies were in the NICU, but it also made it hard to focus on all the plans I'd made for the book tour. Amazingly, I never missed or canceled a date.
The readings mattered, of course. So did the signings. But meeting readers who shared dog-eared pages that I'd written that left an imprint on their hearts stayed with me the longest. Those moments made the running around feel less like promotion and more like delivery. I had made something in solitude, then placed it into other hands. After that, it no longer belonged only to me.
That is both the gift and the excitement of publishing a book. Becoming a grandmother was different. I reaped the benefits without the delivery.
Letting the book have its life
Before publication, a writer can still pretend to be in control. There are sentences to revise, pages to rearrange, commas to question with unreasonable intensity. The work is private, even when others are helping.
Once the book is out, the relationship changes.
Readers bring their own memories to it. They underline different lines than the ones I expected. They laugh where I worried the page was too heavy. They grow quiet in places I had almost cut. Each has his own interpretation of the story I created and what it meant to them.
At first, that can feel strange. I knew what I meant when I wrote it. Then I learned a book becomes larger when readers enter. On tour, I had to practice releasing the book without abandoning it. I could introduce it, read from it, answer questions, and sign the title page. Then I had to let each copy travel home with someone else.
A book is born from the writer, but it grows in the reader.
Summer kept narrowing toward home
As the tour went on, another countdown was happening beneath the public one.
At each stop, I checked messages more often. I kept my phone charged. I packed with the awareness that I might need to change plans quickly. The book had a schedule, but babies do not respect schedules. They arrive on their own terms, which may be the first lesson they teach.
There was something almost comic about the overlap. In one town, I spoke about creation, patience, and revision. In another, I signed books while thinking about rushing to my child's side at the hospital. I answered questions about character and research while waiting for news about contractions.
Life did not separate its themes neatly for me. It placed them side by side and said, pay attention.
The end of the tour began to feel less like a finish line and more like a handoff. I had spent the summer talking about the birth of a book. I was about to witness the birth of a new generation in my own family, twice in one summer!
It reminded me of "Father of the Bride 2," a movie both my children and I laughed over many times. Just when I thought I had completed one great act of arrival, another one raised its tiny hand.
Holding a grandchild changes the room
People try to describe becoming a grandparent, and many of the descriptions are accurate. Also, like motherhood, until it happens to you, it's just a description.
Then the room changes.
The baby is small, impossibly small, yet everyone begins to move in relation to that new presence. Voices lower. Time slows. Phones come out for pictures, then disappear again because looking directly is better. Even the air feels careful.
When I held my grandchild for the first time, I thought about all the holding that had brought us there. Parents holding children. Families holding stories. Years holding grief and joy in the same body. A book holding a season of labor. My arms holding this new life at summer’s end. Yet, there is still one more baby not ready to be held by me. One baby, still in the NICU, but doing extraordinarily well. One more baby that's not quite ready for the world.
And I have begun once again preparing for another baby of my own. It will most definitely take more than nine months to arrive. Some days it grows and develops more than others. But with the many hands that will help it along the way it will arrive when it's good and ready.
Two kinds of birth, one lesson in surrender
Writing a book and welcoming a grandchild are not the same. One is made through craft. The other is a person, whole and mysterious from the start.
Still, both asked something similar of me.
They asked me to labor without controlling the outcome. They asked me to care deeply, then loosen my grip. They asked me to accept that love does not end when something leaves your hands. Sometimes that is where love begins to widen.
The book tour taught me that release is not a single moment. It happens again and again.
You release the manuscript to the editor. You release the finished book to the printer. You release the story to the reader. You release the event once the chairs are folded and the lights go out.
Family teaches the same truth with higher stakes. We raise children, then watch them become parents. We offer help, then step back. We hold the baby, then hand the baby over. We learn new names for ourselves.
Grandmother is a beautiful word. I chose the name LaLa instead. I'm not only a writer, but a singer as well. Both of these babies make my heart sing, so the name seemed appropriate. We'll see if the little guys are on board, or dub me with a name of their own making. I will most likely grandmother (verb) the same way I write. I make a plan, but it often changes based on the character's desires. This new chapter has been the best so far in both my ventures.
The season closed, but nothing ended
At the start of summer, I thought the book tour would be the story. I imagined the final event as a neat ending: the last signature, the last drive home, the last stack of books unloaded from the car.
Instead, summer closed like a door opening into another room. Two grandchildren to love and nurture. Another manuscript to labor over. A new role as LaLa to grow into.
More to learn. More to give. More room in my heart for it all. I don't need to know exactly how the next chapter will unfold. But I will need a new suitcase—this time, with room for books and toys.
I delivered a book baby. Then I became a grandmother.
What a way to start and end a summer and a new beginning all at once.
Wendy Lynn Decker is a multi-award-winning author of the historical fcition mystery, Whispers of Sea Glass, released April 2026. She lives on the Jersey Shore with her husband. Check out her website for information: http://www.wendylynndeckjerauthor.com
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