You Can Never Write Your First Book Twice

Two years ago, around this time, I was writing my first book.

I had absolutely no idea where those pages would take me.

It was the autumn of 2024, and the book was Vico’s Christmas Storybook. I had never written a book before. I didn’t know much about publishing, formatting, promotion, or all the other things that eventually become part of an author’s world.

At that moment, none of those things mattered very much.

I was simply writing.

And there was something wonderful about that.

When Memories Became Stories

The stories in the book were inspired by real Christmas memories from my family. I didn’t want to simply write down exactly what had happened. I wanted them to feel like children’s stories, so I added a little magic.

But underneath that magic, our memories remained.

I would finish a story and then go back and read it.

Almost every time, my eyes filled with tears.

The stories weren’t sad. Those tears came from somewhere completely different.

I recognized us.

I recognized moments we had lived together. Memories that had existed only inside my head had suddenly become words on a page. I could read them. I could return to them. Most importantly, my son would be able to return to them one day too.

It was an extraordinary feeling.

I had known those memories for years, but I had never read them before.

Writing changed the way I saw them.

The First Time I Saw Vico

Then came another moment that made the book even more personal.

I needed Vico.

I opened Canva and began creating the character. I wrote a description of the little boy I wanted to see.

Except I wasn’t really inventing a little boy.

I was describing my son.

Then Canva created the image.

I still remember the feeling when I saw him.

There was Vico.

Of course, I knew that I was looking at a generated illustration. But that wasn’t what mattered to me in that moment. I looked at the boy on the screen and saw my son.

Something clicked.

Until then, I had been writing my first book and exploring where the stories might take me. But seeing Vico made everything feel real.

This wasn’t just an idea anymore.

This was Vico’s Christmas Storybook.

This was exactly the book I wanted to write.

And perhaps I needed that moment. When you are doing something for the first time, there is always a little uncertainty hiding behind the excitement.

Can I really do this?

Can I finish an entire book?

Will these stories become what I imagine them to be?

Seeing Vico looking back at me felt like an answer.

Keep going.

And I did.

The Innocence of a First Book

Today, two years later, I know much more about what happens after you write the last sentence.

I know about publishing. Covers. Formatting. Promotion. Websites. Social media. Reviews. All the little decisions that come with putting your work into the world.

Back then, I knew very little about any of it.

And strangely, I think there was something beautiful about not knowing.

There was no previous book to compare this one with.

I couldn’t ask myself whether it was better than my last book, because there was no last book.

There were no expectations based on what I had done before.

There was only a blank page and the excitement of putting another story onto it.

Sometimes I probably wondered whether I could really call myself a writer.

Maybe many people writing their first book feel that way.

When does it happen?

When you start writing?

When you finish the manuscript?

When the book is published?

I don’t know if there is one correct answer.

But looking back now, I think I became a writer somewhere during those quiet days of autumn.

Maybe it happened while I was writing one of those family memories.

Maybe it happened while I was reading a finished story with tears in my eyes.

Maybe it happened when I saw Vico for the first time and thought, There he is.

Or maybe it happened little by little, one page at a time.

You Only Get One First Book

I can look at Vico’s Christmas Storybook today and see things I might do differently.

Of course I can.

Two years have passed. I have learned. I have changed. My writing has changed too.

That is exactly how it should be.

But I wouldn’t change the experience of writing that first book.

Because you can improve your writing.

You can learn more about publishing.

You can write another book, and another after that.

But you can never write your first book twice.

You can never completely recreate that mixture of uncertainty, excitement, discovery, and the slightly unbelievable thought:

Am I really doing this?

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I love autumn.

When the season returns, somewhere among the cooler mornings and changing leaves, I remember another autumn.

I remember a computer screen.

I remember family Christmas memories becoming stories.

I remember tears in my eyes.

And I remember seeing a little boy called Vico looking back at me for the first time.

Autumn 2024 gave me my first book.

But it gave me something else too.

It was the autumn when I discovered that I was a writer.

GK