The writing thing....

So, I’ve been writing about vampires. Due to the great response from Shades of Gray and Marlow’s Curse, I am in the midst of another vamp book – adding the characters from those 2 books as secondary guests who wander into the latest chaos I have inflicted on my home town of Brisbane. Of course the thing is with books you can write ‘em but there is absolutely no promises that they will ever get published regardless how your last books went. It’s not like the saying of build it and they will come. It’s more like write it and hope someone does not think it sucks. I think writers forget that. I think we become complacent and make assumptions and - shock horror – start to believe our own publicity. No, of course I don't mean you or me....probably I mean everyone else....

To me writing is a job. It’s about creating a book that is entertaining and allows someone to drop their life for a couple of hours and wander into another world. There are heaps of writers around with stacks of books to choose from. Most of us are unknown and will probably always be. That’s okay. Just to take a dive into the shallow end of the writing pond is good. That someone wants to put money behind your book to publish is amazing. That a reader will put hard earned money down to take a chance on you is gobsmacking. And I think there are times that writers forget that as we all compete with one another for the market.

I know there are writers out there that will disagree with the subject of competition but we do compete and some are very scary, to the point of obsessive about it. That worries me. Yes, to a point writing is important, but when you become your publicity, you need to mentally slap yourself and start remembering who the hell you were before you went on this journey. Damn, I never thought I’d use that new age ‘journey’ word in a blog. Anyway…me? I’m Janet Davies. I got lucky when a book was accepted. Amarinda Jones was born out of that luck. I don’t forget that or who pushed and yelled at me along the way to work better and harder and smarter. There is nothing like a bunch of bright red edits across your latest work to bring you back to earth and remind you you’re not that good. And this could all fall apart tomorrow. Or it could get even better. It may stay the same. The thing is whatever you do in life we all know you have to remain grounded and be ever ready to pull your head in.

So, I guess what I am saying is – go out there are try your luck at anything – and I mean anything you believe in. Someone may tell you no – you suck or they may tell you yes, I think you’ll do. Make whatever you can out of the ‘think you’ll do’ statements and remember who you are and where you came from when your 15 minutes of fame happens.

*****************************************

www.amarindajones.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

AmarindaJonesNewsletter/

Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?