Why Do We Fall, Master Wayne?

So that we can learn to pick ourselves up again.

Last week I fell very far, and very hard. I've spent most of this one regrouping, and looking at what went wrong with the release of Hall of Mirrors, and it ironically ended up with me looking in a mirror. The fault can't lie anywhere else except with me, since I'm the one responsible for how the world finds and perceives my work when it's released.

So, I already have a litany of changes I am and will be making to the work I've already put out (new covers!), and lessons that I will have to apply to Book IV when it comes out. It's taken until today for me not to be completely heartsick at the idea of even thinking about the next book, but that time is passing, and I want to get back to work. To prove myself. I believe in my work, I just have no experience in marketing it, and that is where I clearly have to put more focus the next go-round. I've written three novels now, so I know I can do that. But as I read somewhere, I forget where, 'the easiest part of being an indie author is writing books.' It's everything else around it that's hard.

I have never once entertained the idea of stopping. This is too important to me to do that. It's all I've ever wanted to do. I have to change and adapt, adjust, reflect, figure things out. Fix it. But stop? Never.

I remember an interview with... I want to say R.A. Salvatore (it was a long time ago, forgive me), but in it he said one of the greatest pieces of advice I've ever gotten on the topic of writing: If you want to be a writer, stop. If you can stop, you were never meant to be a writer. If you can't, you have a chance.

Perseverance is as important as talent in writing. I am writing, and I will persevere.