Writers must write

 

Oh my God. What have I gotten myself into?

I started writing a novel about three years ago for my own amusement. I didn’t want to be rich, well-known or famous. I just wanted to have a little fun in my mind’s eye; a challenge, if you will.

When I let my husband read what I was doing, he encouraged me to do more. What more? At one point in my life I had written several small things and sent away to editors in high hopes only to be dashed by hundreds of rejections. I remember thinking I would never go to that place again; slush pile hell. The place where all manuscripts go to die and egos get crushed into tiny bits of dust.
But, it would be nice to have someone besides a few friends to read my work. But how? I certainly didn’t know any writers. Contests. Hmmm… Sounds kind of fishy, doesn’t it? You pay some money and win? Big deal. That was how my thought process went. No insult intended. My mind runs with constant conspiracies.

I don’t know where or how I came across the RWA,(Romance Writers of America), contests online. Well that looked more interesting. Critical reviews that came as a result of entering the contest. Makes sense. I could get someone to read my work, and tell me if I was full of sh*t or if I might be a writer. Thus my thoughts ran. I really didn’t believe I had the right to call myself a writer. I still have a hard time with it. Even after being an Amazon bestseller.

I placed in two out of three of my first contests. Wow. Talk about validation. I did everything that the contest people recommended, ruined my writing, and stunk big time for almost a year. It didn’t really matter, though because I was having lots of fun and little by little figured out what happened to my voice.

By year three, I had three manuscripts that were pretty solid, and another on the way. On my summer vacation, I entered perhaps ten contests, with my two best works. One was a winner. It won the molly, the show me the spark, and was a finalist in three others.
Several editors asked for full manuscripts, but none more serious than Cindy Brannam with Soul Mate Publishing. She got back to me in less than two weeks and I had a contract.

I have to say, I was more frightened than ecstatic. I have a fulltime job. What do I know of marketing? Now my playing at writing was going to be real. Would it ruin everything? Would fun turn into work? What if no one liked it or bought it? Jeesh, and I didn’t know a tweet from post.

Fast forward to May 25th. My book has been on Amazon for almost three weeks. I did make the Best Seller lists for about two weeks, and its ranking is still in the top ten percent of all books. Not bad for a first book.
Do you know what the hardest thing is? To focus on book two. Not Facebook, Not twitter, Not Pinterest, Not Tumbler Not to a myriad of posting on blogs. To write. Because that is what I love to do. That’s how all this started. I’m not a rock star. I’m not a marketing genius. I am a writer.

And writers write.