Why does anyone write?
Hundreds of copies of my book, This Immortal Day - Sara’s Journal were snapped up this past weekend from Amazon Kindle during my free promotion, and the email responses have been so nice I thought I’d say a little about how this book got written in the first place. I love writing, I love the creative process and how stories sometimes write themselves while I write them. A long time ago I had an idea, an image really; it was just a mental picture of a hiker finding a skeleton in the woods. Tucked inside the pocket of the tattered clothing was a carefully folded plastic bag with three hundred dollars and a note that said; “I’m so sorry you found these remains, please use the money to dispose of them however the local authority requires, or take it for yourself and go in peace.” From that image I wrote an outline that evolved, seemingly of its own accord, into an account of a woman who disappears from the Davenport Cliffs, north of Santa Cruz, California.
Back then, you had to interest a literary agent to represent you and sell you and your book to a publishing house, but unless you already had some sort of “in” into the publishing world already, agents would only recommend editor friends who would charge several hundred dollars to edit and revise your work.
I shelved my book, and discovered online femslash fiction. I started with Xena altfic, and found myself mentally rewriting the stories as I read them. I did that right up until I discovered Stargate Sam/Janet femslash and decided I was done reading other people work and began writing my own. Writing under the penname ten9, I began uploading my stories on Area HKH 52 and An Archive of Our Own.
Eventually I returned to my first novel, (I had written half of a second by then) and began the re-editing process when I discovered Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing program and thought, really?
This Immortal Day – Sara’s Journal, was published on Kindle on June 19, 2013, and the sales have been very satisfying. I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be able to share with others something I worked on so hard for so long. Now I’ve finished my second novel, “Borne Darkly”, and after I complete the repeated editing process I always go through, I’ll be uploading that on Kindle too. I’m very excited. (and this is why:)
I’ve posted this as one of my very favorite quotations because I think it’s absolutely true:
“If you bring forth into the world what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. But if you don’t bring forth into the world what is within you, it will destroy you.”
Saying #70, from “The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas”
Back then, you had to interest a literary agent to represent you and sell you and your book to a publishing house, but unless you already had some sort of “in” into the publishing world already, agents would only recommend editor friends who would charge several hundred dollars to edit and revise your work.
I shelved my book, and discovered online femslash fiction. I started with Xena altfic, and found myself mentally rewriting the stories as I read them. I did that right up until I discovered Stargate Sam/Janet femslash and decided I was done reading other people work and began writing my own. Writing under the penname ten9, I began uploading my stories on Area HKH 52 and An Archive of Our Own.
Eventually I returned to my first novel, (I had written half of a second by then) and began the re-editing process when I discovered Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing program and thought, really?
This Immortal Day – Sara’s Journal, was published on Kindle on June 19, 2013, and the sales have been very satisfying. I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be able to share with others something I worked on so hard for so long. Now I’ve finished my second novel, “Borne Darkly”, and after I complete the repeated editing process I always go through, I’ll be uploading that on Kindle too. I’m very excited. (and this is why:)
I’ve posted this as one of my very favorite quotations because I think it’s absolutely true:
“If you bring forth into the world what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. But if you don’t bring forth into the world what is within you, it will destroy you.”
Saying #70, from “The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas”
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