The hardest thing about writing a book
Updated: Aug 19, 2018
You have the creation of life. You are so proud of your little wobble-headed darling, who doesn’t really look a thing like you yet. After a year of puking, keeping things higher than grab-a-lot, them making a game of stripping off messy diapers and running through the house, you are ready to mold your young one. You’ve gone through the potty training, breaking away from the bottle, taught them how to roll, crawl, and walk. You have spent hours teaching them the alphabet, numbers, how to read and write. Hours of 'Hooked on Phonics' and saying the alphabet backward. Finally, they are ready for their first day of school.
That is what it’s like to write a book. The idea forms and you think, “this is pretty good” and run with it. Soon enough, it comes to life with more characters and situations that they must deal with. Travesty strikes! Now, they have to figure out how to get through that. Love comes along. Oh, the joy of a relationship in the beginning stages. Each and every little friction or romantic gesture, noted, polished, preserved. Finally, the book is ready!
After going through the grueling hours – and I do mean torturous – of formatting for every different platform out there, you are ready for publication! All your friends tell you how proud of you they are.
“Great accomplishment! I’m so proud of you!”
“You go! That takes a lot and you did it!”
“Way to make your dream come true!”
Then you throw out the link. “Hey Y’all. Who wants to read the book?”
Silence. Crickets. It’s like yelling into the Grand Canyon and hearing my echo come back at me. Really? I’m offering to give my book away for free just to have you tell me what you think of it. My friends aren’t idiots. Many of them read. But none for me.
It’s like potty training your little darling and running in to tell the family and everyone waves a hand, nonchalantly, barely taking eyes off the big game on the big screen, “good for you. Way to go.” It’s enough to make you feel down. After all, if you can’t get those who know you to take a chance on a free novel, how are you going to get strangers to read it at cost?
