You’re a writer. You know how it goes. You work your keester off writing something that you just think is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, the Maharajah’s… uh, well, you get the idea.
But life happens and stuff happens and somehow it just doesn’t seem to be the big hit you expected. And then, one day…
Doncha just love a cliff-hanger? Me too! It was all calm and peaceful until that day… Of course I’ll marry you, Louise, although…
So, I’ve self-published two books; Droppington Place and Marigold’s End. I’ve recently reread the first, and didn’t like it.
What? What? Failed to like MY OWN BOOK? I’m 81 percent ready to go shoot myself!!! So much of it is good, but even I find the characters a little tedious.
What was I trying to say with that book? What was my goal…
You know, in discussion this with you, I think you’re right. I should probably take it down. God forbid I get his by a bus tomorrow and that book is my legacy. “Here lies John D Reinhart, Not Much of a Writer. I mean, read that book. If you can.”
Thanks for helping me straighten that out. Click the link on it today, because it’ll soon be gone.
Hey, that’s a clever marketing ploy, isn’t it? Read my book and see how bad it is before I stop publishing it! This could WORK!
So, my youngest daughter moved off to college, leaving my wife and me to clean and straighten up and rearrange the house and our lives for just the two of us.
And here, in my pile of papers with which I should eventually do something, I find a manuscript, returned to me by a literary agent. With changes in it. With suggestions in it. With “I can hardly wait to get your changes back so we can pitch this magic to the world!” handwritten on the cover, and the word “Great” underlined in big letters at the end.
Hey, that’s my book right there. It’s the heavily modified first version of The Diary of Phineas Caswell, which has since been rewritten into the above-mentioned Marigold’s End.
What do you think about that? The book got all the way up to the senior editor at some company called, oh, let’s see, what was that name… (cliffhanger again) Disney? It sat on that person’s desk for a month, before it got shot down as “not marketable at this time.”
It’s been unread and unattended and just sitting on Smashwords for so long, I had forgotten that it’s good.
Isn’t it funny how, as a writer, you pour your heart and soul into your words, but they remain meaningless until someone reads them.
And doesn’t it burn when you find that, in your own rereading, they aren’t very good?
And doesn’t it lift your spirits into the stratosphere when someone reads them and likes them? Isn’t it so nice to have connected to your reader?
Excuse me, but I’m going to reread those notes again and think about what it means…
John D Reinhart 