Oh, validation, you sweet siren, always sucking me in and making me feel special again…

After my complete failure at the last Author Event, I had extremely lowered expectations about this one. To make it worse, a friend of the Hubby’s popped into town to socialize, so I had to arrive to the shindig all by myself.

I was expecting no one when I called the librarian. She said two people for sure were very excited. By the time I started reading, there were 5 including the librarian (The librarians don’t always come to these things, which is fine. They have lives, but I’m elated when they do stick around). Hubby came late to round it out to an even half dozen. Hey, I’ll take it.

It’s not the number so much that’s important to me. It’s that wonderful question: “So when are we gonna get to read the next book?”

It was barely above zero last night, but these people came to my Author Event specifically to ask that question.  Their only agenda is to find something to read. My only agenda is to give them something to read and maybe make a few bucks doing it.

It’s a simple relationship on the surface. The problem is my delivery system is stunted. I know there are multitudes of other veracious readers out there looking for books exactly like mine. I just need to make sure they can find me. I need to become known to them.

Marketing is my ugly dealer. I only get my fix through her.  It’s a tawdry system.

On the bright side, Milltown Public Library pulled out all the stops on the spread again. Their small village library is on the cusp of a very ambitious (and very necessary) expansion project. If you’ve got some loose change laying around, or maybe a rich old uncle looking to make amends for his wicked life, think about dropping off a few bucks for the cause.

Frozen Hell Poll Question. Say we get the green light to produce the mini-series…Where the heck are we gonna shoot it?

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It finally happened. I can make up all sorts of plausible excuses for why it happened. I can imagine all sorts of circumstances that have nothing to do with me.

None of that changes the bold faced truth. At my last author appearance, no one showed up. Nobody. My husband and I sat in an empty room for fifteen minutes, switching our lines of site between the clock and the front door. After twenty, I started to cry. We packed up and left.

I suppose breaking down and bawling like a big baby was unprofessional of me, but it’s cheaper than getting hammered and being hung over the next morning.

Regardless, every artist must deal with rejection because it’s inevitable. It’s also necessary. I certainly don’t like that it’s necessary. I hate criticism. I take my work very personally. My skin is translucently thin (literally and figuratively, but let’s stay on topic). Rejection is necessary because you can’t learn if you don’t fail.

Life has kicked me in the teeth on several occasions. When it does I cry. I grieve. I have my little pity party. I swear and curse people’s names. I lament the ignorance of the rest of the world to my creative genius (“stupid bastards”). The one thing I cannot allow, however, is debilitation.

It is very tempting to take rejection as some sort of cosmic sign that I am suppose to stop what I’m doing before I get rejected again. There are so many other, easier things that I could do with my life. I wouldn’t have to expose myself to criticism, or worse, indifference.

That’s not who I am. I’m the creative weirdo with alternative universes running through my head at any given moment. I’m the smut peddler who has the audacity to write a mystery series in which my characters swear and get to have sex. I’m the naive idealist that believes deep down in my soul that my self expression is meant to be shared with the world.

I’m a writer. Deal with it.