I wrote a story with my friend. Our story, Extraordinary Girl is a novel about a young woman who finds her way in the world despite her many obstacles.
For whatever reasons, I’ve not promoted it before, but I knew that the time would come for it to be out there where it belongs. (In the hands of readers!) Truly, it was not written for only ourselves to enjoy.
The process of writing a novel, even a short one, is long and tedious. It reminded me of when I was pregnant with my children. The first stages involved much preparation, excitement and thrill. But like pregnancy, the last stages of writing the book became tiring, heavy and frustrating. Birthing a book involved time, energy and even money to get enough of the kinks out.
And then, after completing the process, and reaching the end of a long race, I learned that the end of one process was really the beginning of another process, in which I wasn’t completely ready. And that process is promoting the work, our work. It is not a process I was familiar with, nor frankly willing to get acquainted with at that moment.
I mean, wasn’t it enough our story was out there, published on Kindle? And if it was written to be read, and put on a proverbial “shelf”, then it would be found and read. Right? Wrong. And honestly, I knew that. But hey, it was out of my hands, at least.
When I read about promoting a story, a piece of my soul immediately rejected the idea. Nope! Not interested in putting our work (hard work) out there to be criticized and rejected.
But now? Well, after months and month of working in other “arenas”, doodling, blogging and such, I’ve finally reached the point where I’m ready to promote. I’m no longer worried about the “public-eye” or ratings or inevitable rejections. All those things are not the measure of truth.
The truth is that what my friend and I did in writing a story together is an accomplishment and a beginning of a dream realized. To become writers. We created a character that we both believed in and birthed her story. We wrote. Yay us!
I Write 