Sɑnɗrɑ☼ asked Anna Jarzab:

What were some of your greatest challenges in writing and publishing your books? What did you learn from overcoming them? P. S. I'm a big fan of your writing!

Anna Jarzab Thank you for saying that! It's hard to talk about challenges, mostly because they're ongoing, but I guess I'll say here that publishing is a business and so much of it is out of your control. Every writer (including myself) is guilty of sometimes losing sight of why we're doing this in the first place and focusing too much on "milestones" (winning awards, bestseller lists, sales at any level, big media, good reviews, etc.). When I hit a rough patch a year and half ago, I did the only thing I know how to do--I wrote a book about it. A book I'm still working on, that teaches me something new about how I felt then (and now) every day. One of the most important things that book taught (and continues to teach) me is that writing for its own sake should be the most important thing; the pleasure of creating, of building a world and creating characters, should be front and center in your mind at all times. Sometimes it takes the falling away of everything else to make everything else fall away, but it's an important lesson even for authors who are at a great point in their careers, I think. Thanks for asking!

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