Felicite Lilly's Blog

I recently released a new book in a genre that I know is overrun with writers. However, I decided to go through with it. Turns out my editor didn't do his job well enough and I am now getting a lot of negative reviews. I will say the only reviews I've gotten back from it were from other authors, so they are more susceptible to picking up on the writing nuances than maybe other readers. However, I am now at a cross roads. I am going to have someone else edit the book and I am going to rework it. But do I pull it from the shelves? Do I leave it for now?
My books are like little children to me. I don't want to pull their plugs! It's okay to make them better, but what if I pull them...maybe something happens and they never make it back out there.
The life and love of a book is not to be diminished. They are so important...to all of us.

Being as much a reader as I am a writer, it is difficult at times to come to terms with my own writing. I either want to take it and throw it in the trash, or put it out there for everyone to read. By the time I have completed a book, I end up doing a little bit of both. My heart becomes so entangled with the book that I imagine it is a little like a divorce by the time I'm done...sitting in Domestic Relations Court trying to work out who gets what and what you keep and what parts you let go. Oh, the humanity of it...so sad and so empowering, all at the same time.

I am having one of those..."That's it! I've reached my limit! I quit!" Moments. You know the ones. The ones where no matter how hard you try to do something or write something it doesn't turn out right. But take into consideration this: maybe it wasn't supposed to come out the way you thought it should. When your character and story take you to a new place you never saw coming? Sometimes that's a beautiful thing and you should embrace it, instead of yelling in its face. Wooosaahhh. "Okay, I'm ready to go again."

So, here we are, 2015. I used to revel in the feel of a paper book. Now, I can't live without my phone and my kindle app. The access to digital material is so simple, anyone can read anything, for the right price.
The second book in The Hunter's Series, Darkness, comes out July 18, 2015, and I decided to try and give the first book away for free on Amazon Kindle to boost interest in the second book. It has been unbelievable. I am averaging about 5 people/hour downloading my book (where would I be without KDP?). Apparently, free is the right price. But I have to be honest with myself. I am a new author. And as a reader, I used to download free books like it was my job. Overall, I am happy with my decision and just hope that there will be enough interest generated for the second book. Otherwise, at least people had a chance to read my book...right?

As an author, nothing is more engulfing and, at times, confusing than being someone else. The depth at which I crawl into someone else's head is astounding at times; it's also extremely important. My creative writing professor in college taught me four valuable lessons when it comes to writing: 1. Sometimes the best thing you can do is trash the story you've got and start from the beginning on something new. 2. (I found him out wandering around on campus during finals at about 4:00 a.m...odd? No. For him, the character he had crawled into, it was his normal) It's okay to be someone else for a little while, as long as you can still be you, too. 3. Tell the story that's never been told. 4. A story must be character driven. It's good to have a good setting, but even more important that if you took that character and set them on a deserted island to see what happened, it would still thrive...Castaway, for instance.
I share this with you because I think these are all ways to becoming a great author. I have a short story I wrote in college in Robert Olmstead's(the man who gave me all that advice) class, that was an utter and complete crazy ass story, but it was freeing to write about something so outrageous and utterly unique. Maybe I will share it with the world one day.
Either way, I hope your writing improves every day. We are all a work in progress.