The closer it gets to having some of my books available, the more nervous I’m getting. It’s one thing to handpick who reads your material. It’s another matter entirely to make it available to everyone.
A few months before my car accident, I taught myself to hand-bind books, thinking that would be a really cool way to get my work in the hands of masses. Turns out that not only was it a very costly option, it was also extremely time consuming. Not the binding so much as the endless process of printing all the pages. My patience with that ran out after the twelfth book was ready.
But it did make it possible for more than just my proof reader (thanks, Jackie!) to read it, among them a rather prominent local celebrity. Everyone seemed to enjoy the story, including two people I fully expected to hate it.
Still, I’m getting butterflies, the size of condors, at the thought of more people reading my work.
There is a saying that you’re your own worst critic, and this is certainly true of me. Even though I’ve picked up something I’ve written and actually forgotten it’s mine. I get caught up in the story, same as I would any other book in my house. Well the good ones.
I’ve read some that have been perfectly awful, and actually finished them. But only because I’m a fairly stubborn person. I have a hard time believing that there are books that can’t get better. But I’m here to tell you, some of them can’t.
It’s that thought that is causing the invasion of the winged creatures in my stomach. The thought of others reading my books and hoping that, at some point, they get better. And it’s stupid. While I know I’m not a great writer, I know I’m not that bad either. (Oh to have Mark Twain’s talent!)
So I’m just going to remember my Aunt Barb, who was one of my biggest supporters and fans. I’ve never known anyone who read as much as she did. And I’ve never felt as proud of anything I’ve written as I did of one I call, ‘For Baby’s Sake.’ I’d given her the finished draft one afternoon and she told me she’d read it the next day. However, when she did call in the morning, it was earlier than I expected. And the first words out of her mouth after my, “Hello,” had me wondering what I’d done to make her mad.
“Damn you, Kristy!” (I really debated whether to quote her here and decided to just go for it)
Apparently she thought she would start the book the night before, read until she was tired enough to sleep, and then finish it when she woke up. But she said once she started reading, she couldn’t put it down – until three a.m.
It’s one of my favorite memories and I’m grinning from ear-to-ear as I type this. Never thought one of the nicest compliments I’d ever hear would come in the form of me being cussed out, but this one tops the list of my favorites. I really miss that woman.
