Where do characters go after you publish a book?

Short answer: They're dead.

I know, it's a weird question. But I spent so much of my time thinking about the characters in Jiro. What motivated them, and how would they react in certain situations? I was so invested in Jiro that they were almost like my friends. They were almost real. And every day I sat down to write (or edit) it felt like having coffee with an old friend. They took up a lot of space in my brain. And the moment I hit publish: poof. They were gone.

I still think of them from time to time, but not in the same way. When I was writing Jiro, I thought of them like I think about my husband or a friend. Now that it's published, I think of them like a friend or family member who's passed away. And it makes sense. When working on the manuscript, their story was unfinished. They still had things to do, and places to see. Once I locked that manuscript in place on the self-publishing dashboard, their story was over. They were, essentially, dead.

It's a hard pill to swallow. It's why Rubber City Ruins saw a sequel. As a new author, I couldn't handle creating these characters only for them to suffer brain death. So, I kept chipping away at their story. Jiro, on the other hand, comes from a more seasoned writer, one who knows that death is a natural part of life. And sometimes, the best thing to do is lay them to rest.

I think it's why I get a little hot under the collar when no one reads it. David Eagleman once said that humans suffer three deaths. When the body stops functioning, when we are buried, and when someone speaks your name for the very last time. As long as someone is reading Jiro, or talking about Jiro, the characters are never really dead. When I die, I'll never really know when I suffer my third death. (Or, the first two, I suppose). But I'm the creator of these characters, and there's nothing more painful than watching someone you love suffer their third death.