Here We Go

It will be live soon. I wonder how many other authors approach this moment, the debut novel, with such an exquisite mixture of fear and joy and pain and excitement and and and and and...

Why yes, I do have these emotions. All at once. Simultaneously. Ack.

I know it's early, but there's a lot to think about. There's a lot to do still. Being an independent author means being, well, everything in the publishing process. Writing, editing, writing some more, editing again, re-writing because it needs it, editing and finding beta readers to provide feedback, continuing to write and edit... and then comes marketing.

That was the piece that made me seek traditional publishing the most. Not that I can't do it, but I've worked hard to remove any sense of inflated ego from myself. I regularly refer to myself with self-deprecating humor, I often shy away from the spotlight and being the center of attention, and it is not my modus operandi to toot my own horn (at least not since 5th grade when I played trumpet in school band). So marketing has this element of all the things I feel like I've shied away from throughout my life.

Instead, I have a website that may become more professional as time goes on. Yes, we are here and here we are. I have a Twitter, started back before it was a sinking cesspool of whatever Elon envisions. I have Facebook, because people still use Facebook but probably not in the way I think about using Facebook because I'm a Millenial and we are getting old.

I searched 'older than dirt' and the first ten images without people were all of car washes.

Maybe this is just the beginning. Or, perhaps, this is a blip in my life never to be pursued further. If we knew the future, at least half of my creative journey would be useless. If we better understood the past that brought us to this precise reality, then perhaps the other half would also be null. Regardless, here we are, and we are here in a moment of profound emotion.

Through all of the emotion, all the fear and doubt, all the pride and amazement that the journey has come this far, I'm left with something rather simple and unerringly complex: We all have stories to tell, but how we choose to share them varies.

Theater, painting, sculpture, music, fashion, books, and any number of other ventures that have added and will add to the human experience. Tell your story.

Be well.

D. James Reed