High expectations

Someday...

I will clean my own house again. 

I will blog from my computer, not my phone. 

My kids won't watch TV while I sleep all day. 

I won't sleep all day. 

I will write again. 

I might even put on make up again. 

And you? What aspirations do you have for yourself?

To Be Read or Not To Be

That is the question.

Do authors really care about making money? It would be nice, right? I would love to get a $750,000 advance, buy my dream house, make millions off movie deals, and settle nicely into a comfortable writing schedule with no pressure.

But that's not what motivates me, and I bet it's not what motivates you, either.

What motivates us is being read.

We are motivated by that pivotal moment when the reader gasps aloud with our character, when our character's feelings become so real that the reader cries along with them, or fears for them, or is moved by them. We are motivated by readers who think about our book and our characters long after the book is over, who dream about our characters, who beg us to write more because they refuse to believe that these characters could be OVER, that they are nothing more than figments of imagination who only existed for a few pages.

I would love to have career as an author. Right now it's a hobby. And an expensive one, at that. But I'm thrilled that in the past few days, thousands of people have downloaded my book. Thousands of people are reading my book. And I hope they are falling in love with my characters. I hope they are feeling just a bit of the emotional connection I felt while I wrote the book.

If you haven't snagged it, Perilous is still free. For now.

http://www.amazon.com/Perilous-YA-Suspense-ebook/dp/B0045JLQCI

My Growth as an Author

As I pull up deleted scenes from Perilous and prepare them for publication on my blog, something becomes blatantly apparent: I've grown as a writer.

It's not that these scenes are horrible, but as I read them, I wince at some of the--well--the choppiness of it all. Some of the words don't quite fit, the dialogue isn't so smooth, the sentences feel fake. It doesn't take too much effort to fix it up, but to me it just screams AMATEUR.

But this doesn't discourage me. Actually, it makes me feel better. It means I've improved my craft. Perilous was still good enough to get a publisher. And now, I feel like I'm an even greater writer. Which just means my future looks good from here!

And as a reader, you can be excited. If you enjoyed Perilous, my future projects are going to blow you away.