Adrian Stephens's Blog - Posts Tagged "ghostbusters-3"

I received a text message from one of my closest friends the other day. He told me that he had finally started reading my book, and he was enjoying it. He was actually excited to tell me this. He finally got around to it, and he was burning through the pages.

When I received his text, I couldn't help but to smile. In talking to other authors, I've heard their frustrations with family and friends (let's call them framily to save space) who hadn't read their novels. They take it as a lack of support for their work.

In a way, they are right. The problem is, they fail to see it from their framilys' standpoint. Our framily have known us a long time. They know us a certain way, with a certain personality, and they know our strengths and weaknesses.

More than that, they care about us. While many authors feel that if their framily cared they'd read the book, I realize it's their caring that makes some of them hesitant to read it. Why? What if it's not a genre they like? What if it's just bad? What if it's so bad that they have a hard time getting to the end of it? Now, we'd all like our framily to have more faith in our abilities but, especially when it's our first book, is it fair to ask them to expect that we have a talent that to this point may have been hidden?

Let's face it, we all think we can write, or we wouldn't have taken the time to do it. But, just because we think
can write, doesn't make it true. Even if we have a brilliant idea for a story, the ability to develop it, create interesting characters and put it all together for a well developed novel eludes enough of us to warrant the fear.

The last thing our framily wants to do is tell us they didn't like the novel we worked so hard on. And it's hard to lie and tell someone they've got talent if they don't believe it. It's much easier to have excuses why they haven't been able to read it. It may not even be a conscious decision, but it happens.

Having had several of my framily seemingly excited to tell me that they liked my book, I recognize that it's really not even excitement. It's relief. A weight has been lifted. They don't have to lie or make excuses. They don't have to trudge through the pages. Relief.

I made a decision when I started writing In My Shoes (and even my Ghostbusters III treatment) to do my best not to put people in that position. I don't ask people if they've read my book, and I don't ask them how they liked it. It's not that I don't care, I just don't want to put them in an uncomfortable position. If they want to talk about it, what they liked and what they didn't, I'm always more than happy to talk about it. I'm proud of it, so talking about it is quite fun for me. If they gush too much, I get a little embarrassed, but I still enjoy it. And when they tell me they loved it with that hint of excitement/relief, I still can't help but smile.

If you haven't read In My Shoes yet, I hope you do, and I hope you enjoy it!