Ah, the ending of another year, and time to reflect.
Here are a few tips taken from my past almost two years of
being a published author:
1) Believe in yourself, or just be really, really
stubborn. Some folks will shoot you down, even people who mean well. ANYTHING
big in your life- writing, art, whatever, is going to change things with you
and your relationships with others. This can be threatening to some folks. You
have to hang on to the dream that got you on this path—and don’t let go.
Setbacks will happen and so will crippling self-doubt. Hang tight and push
through.
2) Think long term when naming things that will be
around—long term ;). I love the name Asarlaí. It’s different, cool, and fun (it
is also stolen from another language- wanna guess which one? ;)). It’s also a
pain in the butt to have to keep correcting that accent mark at the end. Had I thought about it, and the number of
things that word would have to go on, I probably would have found something
less problematic.
3) A six book story arc series is hard. Okay, The
Lost Ancients started as two trilogies. The print book of book one still says
that. But as I wrote book two, I realized it was one big-ass story and
splitting it like that was artificial. However—six books in a single story is
FREAKING HARD! Curse of having big-ass stories in my head I guess. But moving
forward, going to really try to stick to stories that will fit into three books
at a time.
4) Not everyone will like your books and that’s a
good thing. I had a woman come up at an event and demand that I sell her on my books. I asked her what
she liked to read—she said dark, angsty, tragic, love stories. I smiled, and
took my book out of her hand. I told her she would probably not like my books
and explained why. She nodded (she’d really wanted me to give her a hard sell)
then she said she did have a friend who liked more of what I wrote ;). Know what you write. Accept some folks won’t
like that, and even some who do like the sub-genre, may not like your book. I
had one person who looked like they would like what I wrote, write that The
Glass Gargoyle was too complicated for them to read, but would probably make a
good movie. (Somewhere in there, I’m thinking is a compliment?)
5) Pushing yourself is good. It is so easy to let
yourself find a way out of doing difficult things—even ones we really want to
do (or have done). Get your self-nagging
hat on, and cut the TV time, get up early, work during lunch. To quote one of my
favorite people, “Make it work”.
6) Be sure you have awesome people behind you. I
wouldn’t have the books out that I do without all of my amazing beta
reading/editing friends. People who emotionally supported me or let me bounce
ideas off them. Not to mention the people I found and hired-artist, editors,
formatters. People who believe in you are worth their weight in
chocolate—always value them.
7) Dates may be closer than they appear. Yeah. Even
after four books out, I still think things will get out faster than they do.
Life happens. Reality changes. Same for folks who are helping you get a book
done—they have lives too. I was hoping that The Sapphire Manticore would be out
in December…then it became very very late December….now we’re looking at January
(hence my posting the first chapter over in my pages section on the right
side). Part is doing a book this time of year is hard. Part—this is a big book
and everything takes longer with big stories. Part is reality changes
sometimes. But the fact is, I want this book tight, clean, and ready to ‘wow’.
One more round of edits to come back (and I’m still doing more too), then it’ll
go to the formatters (who also have to make the full print cover out of the art
my artist made). So….it will get here,
just not when I’d hoped.
8) Enjoy the journey. No matter where you are, what
you’re doing—enjoy the process! If you don’t, none of this is worthwhile.
Merry Christmas, Peaceful Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, HAPPY
HOLIDAYS!
