Evolving for the Future

A lot has changed from my last blog post. I’ve won a few awards for both “Wounded” and “Love and Happiness.” I’ve taken a different approach this time around when it came to marketing my latest book, and I’ve been thinking of different ways to evolve as an author. Evolving is what I’ve really been working on.




Since my first novel “Monster”, I wanted to write something that everyone could relate to and love while also being different and one of a kind. “Monster” was received well and sold a lot of copies, but there were some who hated it. With my second novel “Wounded”, I wanted to break the mold. I wanted to get a full grasp on my own style and voice. I wanted readers to see how much I’ve improved and worked on honing my craft. I succeeded. “Wounded” won awards at competitions that I didn’t place with, with “Monster.” It continued to sell even when I wasn’t promoting it, but with success, I started to lose friends or at least people I thought were my friends. I felt like everything was changing around me, and I couldn’t control it. The fact was things were changing, and like everything else, I had to change too.



With my writing, I strive to reinvent myself. I try to create relatable characters for readers to fall in love with, but I needed to learn that reinventing myself and evolving had to also apply to myself as a man. It took me a while, but I had to understand that I could never write something that everyone would love. Everyone has different tastes. I finally realize that I have to write the stories I love and try my best to write them in a way that is appealing to readers and me. I had to come to the realization that sometimes you outgrow people and sometimes they outgrow you, and that’s ok. I needed to learn to keep evolving.


I came back from Miami after winning my third Readers Favorite Book Award for Urban Fiction. While some people would feel confident, I felt humbled. I cherished this time just as much as the first time I won it. When I got on that stage, all the late nights, weekends, and rainy days that I spent writing, the good times of getting positive reviews, the bad times of getting not so good reviews, the people I’ve met and the people I’ve lost, all hit me at once. I appreciated that my hard work was recognized. The whole experience renewed my will to write more successful stories.



I don’t know what the future holds for me. Will I ever have my books adapted to film? Will I ever get picked up by a major publisher? Will people love my new work? I don’t know. All I know is that I will keep striving to improve and get better. I’ll have to take the good with the bad and understand that both of those things come with evolution.

Ben Burgess Jr.Love and Happiness