I follow several new authors and writers on social media. The posts talk about the struggles of finishing a manuscript, worry how it will be received, marketing (which is everyone’s nightmare). I send out encouragement to each of them by replying with words like, stay with it, swing for the fences, you got this. What I should ask is why do you write.
Let me share something people don’t know. I wrote my first book in 2012, For the Love of D. H. Lawrance. With the help of a wonderful mentor, I self published. It didn’t do that well for one thing I had no clue how to market. I was discouraged and some things in my life needed my attention. I did not publish or promote anymore. Over the next twelve years, I kept writing manuscripts and putting them in a drawer.
I remember sitting on the porch on a fall day in 2024, much like today, soul searching, pondering. How long am I going to wait? What am I afraid of? What if I fail again? Then I asked the tough question. Why do I write? I pulled out the first manuscript for what is now a book titled Sins of the Sister and went to work rewriting and editing publishing in March 2026. I have since pulled the second one out and am working on it for 2027.
You see what changed by asking that one question is me and understanding one thing. There is no failure when I am doing what I love.