Over the past few weeks I was feeling pretty lost and aimless as a writer and it really all stemmed from me self-publishing Weapon Icean. That was the best book I wrote at the time but over the last few weeks I feel like I've grown even more as a writer and could have made that book even better. But its out there now and people have bought it and read it so there's no going back now.
It wasn't that I was expecting Weapon Icean to become the next Kindle bestseller or an instant hit but I was hoping for a few more sales. A few more readers. I did everything right. Yeah I didn't have a launch party and I didn't have beta readers or an already established audience. I didn't find blogs to do a blog tour. But I did market my book. I marketed it on Instagram and Facebook and Tumblr and now on Twitter too. I blogged about it and shared my entire journey on Instagram and my blog from the first idea to publication. I even had a promotion on Kindle and a sale which resulted in a few sales. And now I even bumped down the price to 2.99. For the first time every I got a mediocre review and she pointed out that there were a few typos. Another friend said the same thing. That was more of a learn and do better moment than anything else. Now I know, don't just trust an editor to get everything right and make your book perfect. Don't skim over it to quickly check for any mistakes after you get it back from the editor either. Give it a long, hard read and make sure everything makes sense and that there are no typos before publishing it. Now I know.
Honestly, if I had to do it again I would. It's been a huge learning experience and really that's what Weapon Icean is for me. A learning experience. Self-publishing and traditional publishing have huge learning curbs. There are certain things that you can only learn by experience. Yeah you can read as many articles and blog posts as you can get your hands on about self-publishing but you don't really know what it's like and what's right and wrong for you until you do it. Next time I think I will make a Facebook launch party and invite people and give away free copies and put my book on pre-order and give free copies and ask for reviews before it's even out there. Next time I want to do it right and I want to do it more professionally.
But this whole experience have left me wondering if I was ready. Was I ready for publication? Doubts and unsure thoughts filled my mind for the past few weeks and I questioned my future as a writer. My immediate future. Since I can remember I've wanted to be a writer. Pretty much my whole life has been leading up to the moment when I would get published and hold my book in my hand. Weapon Icean fulfilled that dream. I didn't know what was next. I don't know if I'll even finish revising the sequel even though I have a whole series planned because what's the point if barely anyone has read the first book? But I realized that my step one was to publish a book and I did and I learned a lot about publishing. Now the next step is to do better next time. To write a better book. To learn to edit and revise better. To find a few beta readers and to perfect the art of self-publishing. While I was thinking long and hard about my writing to the point of ruminating and obsessing I did some more research on traditional publishing and maybe one day I'll write a book that wants to be traditionally published but for now I still feel like that isn't the way for me. I'm too... independent with my writing. I don't want anyone telling me what I can or can't name my book. That I have to get rid of that one plot point just cuz or that this or that shouldn't be in there or that the cover must look like this. I like to have complete control of the work of art that I made even if that means making less money and investing more time and money into doing everything myself. Plus I hear deadlines are tricky and stressful and exhausting and I don't much feel like getting into that.
I have ridiculously high expectations for myself. I see all these authors in their early or late twenties and thirties and want to be as successful and as good as them right now! I want everything to fall into place right now because I'm 19 and a legal adult now and I'm old enough that people might actually take me seriously as an author. But my mom gave me some good advise. She said at 19, as a young adult, you feel like you can do anything. Everything's so big and new and you feel like you can accomplish anything. Like you have high expectations and everything's going so fast and you just want to be at that stage of life that you dream of already. But I'm still only 19! I'm still so young and I still have about forever to perfect my writing and become a successful author and build a backlist of novels. Those authors are great and got book deals and are successful because they are in their twenties and thirties and spent years perfecting their craft before publishing.
So that's what I'm doing. I'm taking a break from Project Khione. I will publish it and I will continue Delphi's story. Just not at this moment. Instead I'm going to devote my time to perfecting my craft of writing. For a while I thought I had it all figured out. I was kind of overly confidant in myself as a writer. I thought I didn't need to read anymore craft books or blogs about writing because I already knew everything there was to know about writing. This was sort of a wake up call and made me realize, uh no I don't. I'm still only 19 and my writing isn't the best it can be yet. It's the best it can be right now but not the best it can be ever. As a writer you are always getting better and I think I finally realized that. For now I'm writing for me. I'm writing short stories and novelettes and novellas and a book that I'm calling middle grade even though I feel like it doesn't really fit in any one genre. I'm testing myself and breaking boundaries that I had put up around my writing. Seeing what else I'm capable of besides writing Delphi and dark, romantic Young Adult books. (And yeah I am considering publishing my short stories because I am seriously proud of them and proud of my writing and characters in them).
When I was feeling that way my best friend told me to pray about it so I did. I told God exactly how I felt and asked Him for guidance on what to do next and just a few days later after continually praying I got this idea for my MG book about Story and now I feel content where I'm at as a writer and even in my life right now. So if you feel lost pray because God is always there and He's always listening and He will always be your biggest supporter. He'll guide you to where He wants you to be if you just give it to Him.
I guess there isn't really a point to this post but I thought maybe someone could learn from my experience. When I felt aimless and unsure of my future as a writer and hadn't written in days because I didn't want to I really wanted to know if others have felt this way. I felt pretty alone so I hope that if another writer has felt the same way that they'll find this post to make them feel not so alone and that you will figure it out. You are an amazing writer and if you've stuck to it for as long as you have that you're meant to be a writer. If you need a break then give yourself a break but then come back to your writing, assess what you've done so far, look back at old projects, at old books you've read and figure out how to move forward.
It wasn't that I was expecting Weapon Icean to become the next Kindle bestseller or an instant hit but I was hoping for a few more sales. A few more readers. I did everything right. Yeah I didn't have a launch party and I didn't have beta readers or an already established audience. I didn't find blogs to do a blog tour. But I did market my book. I marketed it on Instagram and Facebook and Tumblr and now on Twitter too. I blogged about it and shared my entire journey on Instagram and my blog from the first idea to publication. I even had a promotion on Kindle and a sale which resulted in a few sales. And now I even bumped down the price to 2.99. For the first time every I got a mediocre review and she pointed out that there were a few typos. Another friend said the same thing. That was more of a learn and do better moment than anything else. Now I know, don't just trust an editor to get everything right and make your book perfect. Don't skim over it to quickly check for any mistakes after you get it back from the editor either. Give it a long, hard read and make sure everything makes sense and that there are no typos before publishing it. Now I know.
Honestly, if I had to do it again I would. It's been a huge learning experience and really that's what Weapon Icean is for me. A learning experience. Self-publishing and traditional publishing have huge learning curbs. There are certain things that you can only learn by experience. Yeah you can read as many articles and blog posts as you can get your hands on about self-publishing but you don't really know what it's like and what's right and wrong for you until you do it. Next time I think I will make a Facebook launch party and invite people and give away free copies and put my book on pre-order and give free copies and ask for reviews before it's even out there. Next time I want to do it right and I want to do it more professionally.
But this whole experience have left me wondering if I was ready. Was I ready for publication? Doubts and unsure thoughts filled my mind for the past few weeks and I questioned my future as a writer. My immediate future. Since I can remember I've wanted to be a writer. Pretty much my whole life has been leading up to the moment when I would get published and hold my book in my hand. Weapon Icean fulfilled that dream. I didn't know what was next. I don't know if I'll even finish revising the sequel even though I have a whole series planned because what's the point if barely anyone has read the first book? But I realized that my step one was to publish a book and I did and I learned a lot about publishing. Now the next step is to do better next time. To write a better book. To learn to edit and revise better. To find a few beta readers and to perfect the art of self-publishing. While I was thinking long and hard about my writing to the point of ruminating and obsessing I did some more research on traditional publishing and maybe one day I'll write a book that wants to be traditionally published but for now I still feel like that isn't the way for me. I'm too... independent with my writing. I don't want anyone telling me what I can or can't name my book. That I have to get rid of that one plot point just cuz or that this or that shouldn't be in there or that the cover must look like this. I like to have complete control of the work of art that I made even if that means making less money and investing more time and money into doing everything myself. Plus I hear deadlines are tricky and stressful and exhausting and I don't much feel like getting into that.
I have ridiculously high expectations for myself. I see all these authors in their early or late twenties and thirties and want to be as successful and as good as them right now! I want everything to fall into place right now because I'm 19 and a legal adult now and I'm old enough that people might actually take me seriously as an author. But my mom gave me some good advise. She said at 19, as a young adult, you feel like you can do anything. Everything's so big and new and you feel like you can accomplish anything. Like you have high expectations and everything's going so fast and you just want to be at that stage of life that you dream of already. But I'm still only 19! I'm still so young and I still have about forever to perfect my writing and become a successful author and build a backlist of novels. Those authors are great and got book deals and are successful because they are in their twenties and thirties and spent years perfecting their craft before publishing.
So that's what I'm doing. I'm taking a break from Project Khione. I will publish it and I will continue Delphi's story. Just not at this moment. Instead I'm going to devote my time to perfecting my craft of writing. For a while I thought I had it all figured out. I was kind of overly confidant in myself as a writer. I thought I didn't need to read anymore craft books or blogs about writing because I already knew everything there was to know about writing. This was sort of a wake up call and made me realize, uh no I don't. I'm still only 19 and my writing isn't the best it can be yet. It's the best it can be right now but not the best it can be ever. As a writer you are always getting better and I think I finally realized that. For now I'm writing for me. I'm writing short stories and novelettes and novellas and a book that I'm calling middle grade even though I feel like it doesn't really fit in any one genre. I'm testing myself and breaking boundaries that I had put up around my writing. Seeing what else I'm capable of besides writing Delphi and dark, romantic Young Adult books. (And yeah I am considering publishing my short stories because I am seriously proud of them and proud of my writing and characters in them).
When I was feeling that way my best friend told me to pray about it so I did. I told God exactly how I felt and asked Him for guidance on what to do next and just a few days later after continually praying I got this idea for my MG book about Story and now I feel content where I'm at as a writer and even in my life right now. So if you feel lost pray because God is always there and He's always listening and He will always be your biggest supporter. He'll guide you to where He wants you to be if you just give it to Him.
I guess there isn't really a point to this post but I thought maybe someone could learn from my experience. When I felt aimless and unsure of my future as a writer and hadn't written in days because I didn't want to I really wanted to know if others have felt this way. I felt pretty alone so I hope that if another writer has felt the same way that they'll find this post to make them feel not so alone and that you will figure it out. You are an amazing writer and if you've stuck to it for as long as you have that you're meant to be a writer. If you need a break then give yourself a break but then come back to your writing, assess what you've done so far, look back at old projects, at old books you've read and figure out how to move forward.
Have a great week everyone!! Keep up the good writing!
(P.S. A little tie in for Weapon Icean):
If you're a fan of the X-Men or Chelsea M. Campbell's Renegade X series than you'll love Weapon Icean!
After being injected with a serum that gives sixteen year old Delphi Icylin icy cold abilities, she is thrown into the world of the Protectors. The team of superheroes that watches over Amparo City and protect the world from enhanced criminals and villains. Soon after she wakes with her strange new powers, her world is flipped upside-down again.
After being injected with a serum that gives sixteen year old Delphi Icylin icy cold abilities, she is thrown into the world of the Protectors. The team of superheroes that watches over Amparo City and protect the world from enhanced criminals and villains. Soon after she wakes with her strange new powers, her world is flipped upside-down again.
Her parents and older brother are revealed as superpowered villains and a new dark organization rises from the shadows to enact their long awaited vengeance against the Protectors.
Can she trust the Protectors or the handsome, winged Eros and his sinister telepathic boss, Tremble, who believes the Protectors are prejudice against those who look different from "normal" Supers.
Maybe, for Delphi, fitting in and living up to impossible superhero standards is overrated.
You Can Buy It Here:
Hardcover: Amazon.com
Read The First Five Chapters of Weapon Icean Here:
Goodreads (By clicking on Read Book under the book cover).
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