I've experienced lots of things in my life. Every challenge you face as a person only helps you to grow. Adolescence, heartbreak and making major life decisions add something intrinsic to your personal DNA that alternately improves and ruins who you are as a person.

We could discuss things are diverse as childbirth and divorce, but no... I'm talking about something far more fearful and mind-numbing: being a writer.

At every juncture of writing my book, I was faced with what I initially assumed were insurmountable challenges. I agonized over developing my characters and worried about some aspects of my book seeming too cliched. I worried that I wouldn't have enough money to package it properly.

Then, when I thought I had passed the worst, I got a major eye opener. The self-published book business is MAJOR. It's bigger than I even imagined. People bandied about numbers in the range of 80,000 new releases being published a month!

How on earth could I break through all of that clutter with my limited budget? How could I make enough noise to be heard over the din of all the James Pattersons and Dan Browns of this world?

But, lemme tell ya... it turns out that those things were the least of my worries.

Eventually,I put those issues behind me and figured I was ready to move forward. I thought I had gotten to a point where I could just put up my feet and let the book do its own work.

Written and edited? Check
Decent looking cover art? Check
Publicized to family, friends and unassuming strangers? Check, Check, Check.

But wait! There's more. It turns out that I wasn't ready for the emotional turnstile that is public scrutiny.

"I love it!" "I hate it!" "More sex!" "More duppies!" "I'm allergic to duppies!"

It ain't easy to tolerate being boosted up and then deflated so quickly. It made me realize that this is what celebrities deal with everyday. And makes me commend the ones that go to rehab because it would be much easier to keep trying to dull your pain.

I kid you. I'm certainly not a proponent of drugs.(Drugs are bad)

So...what does any self-respecting aspiring author do?

Not cry. Just because I'm creative doesn't mean I'm overly emotional.

Major introspection. And I've realized that writing is an art. All art is subject to scrutiny and the fact that people love or hate your work could easily mean that you have done enough to elicit strong feelings about your work.
I wrote and released my book because I felt I had something different to say. Something that strongly reflected my culture and my people in a way that hadn't been done before. I'm not trying to be a pioneer but I'll admit that I want people (droves of them if I had my way) to hear what I have to say.
There are all kinds of people in this world and it's unlikely that each of us can have the same opinion. That's why there are words like "consensus" to give us an overarching feeling of what public opinion really is.


We all have our own version of the truth and I think as long as each of us tells it in a way that we're satisfied with, that should be enough. I would encourage each and every writer out there to find their truth, get some broad shoulders and shout it from the rooftops if they can.
As a friend of mine says all the time, "Do you want the truth or a fancy story?" Any good writer would reply, "I've always been partial to fancy stories." :)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Shadow-Guar...