Janet Van Gorden's Blog, page 7

We Can’t All Be Perfect, Write?

     I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  Ever since Kindergarten when I spent hours after school copying page after page of other people’s words, filling notebooks, I knew someday I wanted those words to be mine.  But I had pit falls to overcome, number one being…myself!  Over time, I had written and abandoned literally hundreds of story ideas because I never thought they were good enough or dare I say, perfect enough, to attain instant reading success.  Who knows, maybe some of those random discarded ideas could have been something, but I didn’t believe that others would find them interesting or worthy of reading.  So once again, I buried myself in other people’s words, reading one book right after another, wishing that I had some magic answer to writing something that I thought would be “successful”.

     Having read so many books over the years, at such a rapid rate, one day (around my 40th birthday) I actually said to my husband, “I can’t find anything interesting I want to read.”  I had seriously exhausted all the authors that I loved and couldn’t seem to find any new ones.  I was into the romance genre at the time.  So, bless my husband’s heart, his reply was “Why don’t you just write your own book.”  Having been by my side since high school, he knew full well my dreams of authordom.  “Nah,” I replied.  ”I can’t do that.”  Of course, anticipating my reaction, he questioned my negative response.  “Why not?” he asked.  “You know what you like and what you don’t like.  You know what works, and the basic formula of all good romances.  Give it a try.”

So, with trepidation, I put my fingers to the computer keyboard and crafted my first story.  And for months I was so inspired by my creativity that I worked night and day on His Second Chance.  The process was so incredibly liberating.  When it was finished, I did a happy dance all over my kitchen.  Until it was time to publish.  As thrilled as I was to finally reach my goal, and see my words floating around in the e-book stratosphere I couldn’t ignore that little voice of doubt that started creeping into my psyche.  “Will anyone like it?”  “Did I make the romantic parts too descriptive or not descriptive enough?”  “Were my characters believable?”

The second guessing gnawed at me so completely that my husband was getting tired of talking me out of my proverbial tree.  The problem was, that I had dreamed so long of accomplishing this one particular goal, that to settle for anything less than perfection and success was a bitter pill to swallow.  What I had to learn was that success can be defined in many ways.  For me I needed to understand that it all about what I accomplished and not how many copies I sold.  It was me being proud of what I had created and not worrying about whether others thought highly of it.

That aside, I do have to be realistic.  No matter how well a book is written, unless it gets out into the public eye, no one will even know it exists.  But that’s a blog for another day.  Anyway I have recently published my second e-book Take Me Home and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that with a little luck, belief, and some strategic marketing (which I have yet to learn) my success will extend beyond my personal fulfillment, and I will finally be able to send that nagging voice of doubt packing once and for all!

Recognize your pit falls.

     I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  Ever since Kindergarten when I spent hours after school copying page after page of other people’s words, filling notebooks, I knew someday I wanted those words to be mine.  But I had pit falls to overcome, number one being…myself!  Over time, I had written and abandoned literally hundreds of story ideas because I never thought they were good enough or dare I say, perfect enough, to attain instant reading success.  Who knows, maybe some of those random discarded ideas could have been something, but I didn’t believe that others would find them interesting or worthy of reading.  So once again, I buried myself in other people’s words, reading one book right after another, wishing that I had some magic answer to writing something that I thought would be "successful".      Having read so many books, at such a rapid rate, one day I actually said to my husband, “I can’t find anything interesting I want to read.”  I had seriously exhausted all the authors that I loved and couldn’t seem to find any new ones.  I was into the romance genre at the time.  So, bless my husband’s heart, his reply was “Why don’t you just write your own book.”  “Nah," I replied.  "I can’t do that.”  Of course, in my husband’s view of anything is possible. He questioned my negative response.  “Why not?” he asked.  “You know what you like and what you don’t like.  You know what works, and the basic formula of all good romances.  Give it a try.”      So, with trepidation, I put my fingers to my keyboard and crafted my first story.  And for months I was so inspired by my creativity that I worked night and day on my first book His Second Chance.  The process was so incredibly liberating.  When it was finished, I did a happy dance all over my kitchen.  Until it was time to publish.  As thrilled as I was to finally reach my goal, and see my words floating around in the e-book stratosphere I couldn't ignore that little voice of doubt that started creeping into my psyche.  “Will anyone like it?”  “Did I make the romantic parts too descriptive or not descriptive enough?”  “Were my characters believable?”  “Would my readers be offended by my choice of language and intimate scenes in the story (which were actually pretty mild in comparison to most books)?”     The second guessing gnawed at me so completely that my husband was getting tired of talking me out of my tree.  The problem was, that I had dreamed so long of accomplishing this one particular goal, that to settle for anything less than perfection and success was a bitter pill to swallow.  What I had to learn, was that success was my accomplishment, not how many copies I sold.  It was me being proud of what I had created and not whether others thought highly of it.     That aside, I do have to be realistic.  No matter how well I write, unless I get it out into the public eye, no one will even know it exists.  But that's a blog for another day.  Anyway I have recently published my second e-book Take Me Home and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that with a little luck, belief, and some strategic marketing (which I have yet to learn) I will be successful enough to send that nagging voice of doubt packing!