The Story of Open Minds
Ch 8: A Writer’s Journey: Self-Publishing Open Minds (Part 1)
Ch 9: Owning theWriterly Path:Self-Publishing Open Minds (Part 2)
Epilogue: Finding Time to Write the Sequel
Deciding to Self-Publish Open Minds (Part One)
I’ve talked
about my decision to self-publish my paranormal/SF young
adult novel Open Minds, but in short I made a calculated career decision to
self-publish for three reasons:
1)
Publisher interest in paranormal was waning, even though paranormal YA novels were still burning up the charts
2)
Price control
3)
Writing investment diversification
(Plus I have to admit to a certain desire to try the shiny new
gadget of self-publishing.)
My Logic Brain loves those three reasons, and they are truly the
decision points that made me take the leap into self-publishing.
But finding the courage to make the leap was a whole different
story. The theme of my writer’s journey to date has really been about
overcoming fear, and that journey has taught me many lessons.
Fear of Sharing My Work
All good stories start at the beginning. For me, the beginning was
December of 2008, when I decided to write fiction for the first time since I
was a high school student passing serialized stories as furtive notes to my
friends in class. But as an adult, I was terrified to share my work. It took me
two months and a very encouraging phone call from my brother before I was
willing to post my first stabs at writing online. For real people to
actually read. The horrors! I quickly realized that in spite of the horrid
quality of my craft, people didn’t care. They wanted to read the story. I
also learned that having readers rocked my socks.
Lesson #1: Story matters more than craft and
readers matter most of all.
Fear of Being Serious about Creative Work
Once the writing bug bit me, I was completely entranced. It was
like discovering a new addiction, only more so. Writing had tapped into a
creative side of me that had been dormant for many years, jolting my Creative
Brain to life and sending it on a headlong rush of delirious creative work. I’m
not saying the work was good, but my heavens, there was a lot of it. I wrote
day and night. My husband wondered what had happened to me. But I couldn’t
stop; didn’t want to stop. I wanted to do this writing thing full-time,
forever. I had a serious identity crisis for a while: how could someone with a Ph.D. in
Engineering even consider writing as a career? I had always planned to go
back to work in engineering, and now I was going to be a children’s writer??
I wrestled long and hard with that decision, but Creative Brain—once
unleashed—was a force to be reckoned with. Once again, my
brother (the writer) came to my aid and said with no sarcasm that I had a moral
obligation to write. That people who are capable of creating original work have
an obligation to the world to do so. I completely thought he was joking. He
wasn’t. It took me a long time before I finally understood what he meant. In
fact, my understanding of that simple statement continues to evolve (my brother
should run for Dalai
Lama, in case the Dalai decides to make it an elected position).
Lesson #2: Creative work is as valuable in the
world as “practical” work.
Fear of Publishing
Once I took the leap to being serious about writing, I started a
novel with the intent of trying to get it published (this was Clone Runners). I
got all serious about plotting and craft. I read agent and writer’s blogs. I
started my own blog.
And I continued to write like crazy. I entered that phase where you learn
enough to know how much you REALLY don’t know. It was painful and long and
arduous. And exhilarating and amazing. And mostly terrifying.
I was getting close to querying my middle grade science fiction
story and was half-way through the first draft of Open Minds, when the
unthinkable happened: someone (my publisher Omnific)
wanted me to submit the first real novel I had written, Life,
Liberty, and Pursuit (a teen love story). What? That
wasn’t part of the plan, at all. I
was going to be a SF writer, primarily MG, not a romance writer for young
adults. And did I really want to take the risk of publishing with a small
publisher? I had read all the blogs that said to be wary of small publishers,
especially NEW small publishers (I was Omnfic’s 9th title). I hurriedly revised
and polished this novel I had never intended to publish, submitted it, and
before too long they were offering
me a contract. Meanwhile, I consulted my Mission
Statement (#GeekAlert), the one that I had created for my writing career,
and this popped out at me:
To
create a body of work ... that reaches a large number of young readers, to
provide the greatest impact on young lives.
This was what I really wanted: to connect with readers. To have
readers, I needed to put work out where they could buy it. I decided to take
the leap and publish Life, Liberty, and Pursuit.
Lesson #3: You can’t reach readers if you don’t
publish.
These
lessons were just the start of finding my Writerly Path. Read on to Part Two to
see the rest of the journey.
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I have had many of the same feelings you went through and still struggle with the engineering vs writer parts of my life. Its definitely hard to put yourself out there, especially as an introverted techy type, but I've found that the writing community as a whole is very supportive and helpful. They by and large want to teach you and help you learn the craft. And the advice and knowledge only makes you want to work harder.
ReplyDeleteI haven't hit the publishing path yet but I know there are more hurdles that come with that whether you query agents, small publishers, or decide to self publish. It's definitely another real fear I harbor. But something I'm sure I will overcome because the end result is the best reward of all! Your book out in the world being read and enjoyed by others.
I'm so glad it helps - I've had many people inspire me along the way, which is why I write posts like this. Hopefully someone else can see that I faced those fears, survived, and came out (happier) on the other side. Best of luck to you, all along the way! :)
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