It's incredible what the outdoors - the world outside this office - can do for a writer. At least for this writer. It's been warmer, then colder and that reminds me that the rhythms in this process - the putting the book out process - are probably also natural.
I'm probably not some weird inadequate human being because I have these ups and downs. It's most-likely natural to be hyped up the first day you see the cover on the Amazon website and think - YES - finally! It's probably just as natural to be tired by the third straight day (and night) of trying to figure out how to pitch your baby to the world - especially a part of the world that has no reason to know or love you.
By now the friends and family who will buy the book have, and I am enormously grateful. I am likewise faced with the task of learning a whole new thing if I want some unknown 16 year old to come face-to-face with book, and then decide to read it.
So I'm researching. This week I've read that "tweens and teens" (and isn't that an icky turn of phrase) like to read "up." That means they like to read about kids a bit older than they are, so opening my book description with my heroes' ages at the beginning of the book is a mistake. A mistake. Another mistake? Good grief.
But by the time the book ends they are all two years older, so I must re-write the book description. If this information is correct, that is. So I polled a few folks and sure enough - they remember liking to read about characters who were older than they were. Then I think of 10 (I mean 10 and half) year old Madeline who also likes to do that. Fortunately grammar and syntax provide avenues for the re-write. With Kindle and Print on Demand I can change the description in about 48 hours - it will be interesting to see if anything changes.
Which brings me to my thought for today - I think I better treat this enterprise as an experiment. I think I better view it with curiosity and a sense of humor and with the sure knowledge that no on is born knowing all this stuff so I am entitled to my mistakes.
I think I also better remember that no matter what the world thinks of Wych, it is a story I wanted to write, to tell...and it was written for one boy who sat quietly in the corner of a classroom I was teaching in. He could hardly think about what we were doing in class because he was trying to recover from an experience that had placed him immediately and violently in the presence of questions that were beyond his years.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about him...
I'm probably not some weird inadequate human being because I have these ups and downs. It's most-likely natural to be hyped up the first day you see the cover on the Amazon website and think - YES - finally! It's probably just as natural to be tired by the third straight day (and night) of trying to figure out how to pitch your baby to the world - especially a part of the world that has no reason to know or love you.
By now the friends and family who will buy the book have, and I am enormously grateful. I am likewise faced with the task of learning a whole new thing if I want some unknown 16 year old to come face-to-face with book, and then decide to read it.
So I'm researching. This week I've read that "tweens and teens" (and isn't that an icky turn of phrase) like to read "up." That means they like to read about kids a bit older than they are, so opening my book description with my heroes' ages at the beginning of the book is a mistake. A mistake. Another mistake? Good grief.
But by the time the book ends they are all two years older, so I must re-write the book description. If this information is correct, that is. So I polled a few folks and sure enough - they remember liking to read about characters who were older than they were. Then I think of 10 (I mean 10 and half) year old Madeline who also likes to do that. Fortunately grammar and syntax provide avenues for the re-write. With Kindle and Print on Demand I can change the description in about 48 hours - it will be interesting to see if anything changes.
Which brings me to my thought for today - I think I better treat this enterprise as an experiment. I think I better view it with curiosity and a sense of humor and with the sure knowledge that no on is born knowing all this stuff so I am entitled to my mistakes.
I think I also better remember that no matter what the world thinks of Wych, it is a story I wanted to write, to tell...and it was written for one boy who sat quietly in the corner of a classroom I was teaching in. He could hardly think about what we were doing in class because he was trying to recover from an experience that had placed him immediately and violently in the presence of questions that were beyond his years.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about him...