Writers Write

We're five weeks out from the book launch and excitement continues to build!  

That's a good thing. It's also one of the strangest parts about this whole process. There's a building excitement among my family and friends (and I get excited too), but then I step back and truly wonder what all the excitement is about.

I'm self-publishing my book through Amazon. Literally, anyone else with a computer could do the exact same thing. So what's the big deal?

I was talking about my book tonight after my karate class, and one of the girls in the class told me she was writing a book too. She's only in middle school and currently her book is only 7 pages long, but I can honestly say I was excited for her. I wanted to encourage her. I was probably the same age when I wrote my first "book". Coincidentally enough, it was another superhero novel about a young boy with a passing resemblance to Batman. He called himself the Raven. I wrote it with my two friends at the time, and I thought it was a masterpiece.

Earlier in the day I was talking to one of my colleagues at the high school who is also an aspiring author. She let me read an early draft of her novel, and she was finally steeling herself to start on her revisions. I'm excited for her and I want her to succeed, but more than that, I want her to keep writing. Ten years ago I wrote another novel, and just like "The Raven" I thought it was a masterpiece. Then I got buried in rejection letters, and I stopped writing for a long time.

So why is this any different?

The only change is that now I'm making sure my book gets published. I'm not taking it to literary agents  and asking for their approval. I'm putting it directly up on Amazon where there's no one to tell me it's not good enough. And people are excited for the book launch. And I'm excited. But none of that makes me a writer.

Writers write. That's it. That's what it takes.  It doesn't matter if you're 12 years old and 7 pages in, or if you're 25 and still working on your rough draft, or if you're 36 and counting down to your launch party. We're all in this writing-life together. 

I'm going to enjoy the excitement of the next five weeks, but when it's all over, I'll still be a writer. I've always been a writer.  Writers write, and I'll keep writing.

​And that's exciting too.

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