The Worries of a New(er) Author... Or Maybe it's Just Me.
Awhile back I lost a huge chunk (2000+ words) of the next novel I am working on (The 72nd November) and it seems have sent me into a tail spin of worries. I knew what I had written- and had my notes/ outline- but in some ways I feel that I didn't get the same thing/ feeling in the writing. Every time I looked over it I felt that something was missing- but what? I am only left to wonder if I will need to do it again, and I am sure I will, because the feelings of being upset over the loss came through in the writing and not the original feelings I had.
Writing Tempting Fate was so easy for me. The words were easy to find the first time and when I wanted to make changes or add things during the many edits I just "knew" what to change. With the exception of the ending, that just before I started the publishing process went though an overhaul with the help of a friend or two.
With the help of those in my writing group and a nice bulletin point manual I found getting it ready to be published was also fairly easy. (Though I have found mistakes and know there are a few things I will do different next time!)
Then the waiting and real work began. Waiting for it to show up on each eBook site respectively and working to get it out there to people.
Networking and researching who to contact about book reviews (and how to ask properly and not look like a fool!). I spent hours compiling a data base for myself of book review bloggers and Fb pages, email address and names, what genera they like to read and if they were even excepting books for review.
So my worries...
1) I have several more book reviews coming up for TF and I am very much looking forward to them! But how can I get out there even more. How do I reach the audience that would want to read my work. I find that it is so hard to do. The popular thing right now is YA paranormal and /or vampires, and of course the every present "sagas/ series" where you get the reader with the first book and they are drooling for the next two or three books to come out. Not to even mention the heavy erotica of The Fifty Shades series, and no I have not read them... yet. As much as I love a good romance novel I also find my self reading vampire series books or YA books about the paranormal... but my mind can't develop those kind of stories. So I am not "mainstream" right now, and maybe this vampire stuff is a passing fade- but who knows, it could be around for years and years to come.
But the question still remains how do I get my adult romance novel- with a twist, from a new and unknown author- out there, to the right readers- now?
I know that having more than one book would help very much and I am working on that... but it leads to another worry.
2) What if it is not as good? I was beyond connected to the charters in Tempting Fate from the very beginning. I knew them inside and out. I could see them, and feel their thoughts and feelings, and hear their voices right from the start... what if I can't do that with my next novel? Will it not be as good as the first book? Worry, worry, worry!
The big- ever present in my mind - WHAT IF'S?
I know my next story very well, I can see the movie of it in my mind as clear as I could with the last... and I think it is great. But I fear that TF as set a president for what the readers I do have will expect from me... can I meet or exceed those expectations with my next novel? Have I put myself in a genera and now I am stuck there? Can I write a- life story/ romance, or a mystery/romance and still have the same readers? Will my second book lose them when they would have loved the third one as much as they did TF, but never give it a chance because of the second that they maybe only "liked"?
UGH!! Worry, worry, worry!
I don't want to just write the same things in a different way, but I don't want to go way to far off the map either. Or write something that is just the "same old thing"- The like each other, they fight off the feelings, they give in to them, big sex scene, they realize that it is more than lust, say I love you and live happily ever after, and all the while a story has gone on around them.
So where is that little nitch in between everything that doesn't pigeon hole me? And how do I get to those readers more?
I know that all I can do is write what is in my heart and my head and hope that if I love the story and the charters like I did with TF that this will shine through in my writing and others will love the book as well.
BUT- these things are still in my mind... and I worry. Maybe they will go away as I get farther and farther into writing The 72nd November. Lets hope!
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