Carolyn

I am awesome. Or was. Am trying to be so again, and today I got a little boost in the right direction and how sweet that was. I got up this morning before 6 a.m., all refreshed and ready to work again after spending most of yesterday being super-productive, working on a rewrite of what I hope will be my next book for Loose Id. amproof had popped me an email overnight which linked me to an article she had just found about m/m romance and lo and behold, my dear old book A Red-Tainted Silence was on the list.

Here's the link (scroll down for Red): Reviews by JesseWave

I've been really lucky over the years since Red (or ARTS as some readers call it) to get mostly very positive reviews of this book. Of those positive reviews, a terrifying number of them have been of the best kinds of reviews an author can possibly get, of the 'never have I seen such an amazing book,ever' variety. I've also received incredible emails from readers (which I've all saved of course!), some so damn moving I've been left stunned. I love it when I get new ones, especially lately as I try to hammer this current fic into salable format. The little bursts of shiny-happy make me bounce.

They are also a bit daunting, though. The follow-up jitters, the fear that whatever I publish next in this genre can in no way measure up to Red, has been terrorizing me for years. How could it not? Red was written with everything I had, during a super-hard time of my life, was my sanity, was more Me than the person ghosting around in real life and I poured everything I knew at the time into it. That time of my life was just very sucky indeed (the years my spouse was suffering from the heart problems that eventually killed him. Oh good times, yeah.). Writing Red is how I survived all that and yeah, the result was phenomenal. No way can I do that again.

For a long time, that knowledge (and because, quite frankly, I was having too much fun and had too much to do in real life after I became widowed to even want to write. And I'd met Nick, and I got happy...) kept me from writing. I stabbed at it now and then but the fears of failure smacked down and I did other stuff.

In reading this article today, I realized that that fear has somehow, for some reason, dissipated. I know that no other book could be like Red, but now I actually believe it, and that that is okay. I love the story I am working on now, and ballet boy is waiting in the wings too. Instead of feeling like a has-been reading this article, instead it was all I could do to keep from replying I AM HERE! I AM ALIVE! I AM WRITING! REWRITING! YES!!! LOVE ME!!!

LOL. That would be stupid. Instead, I'll just get back to the rewrite and get this thing turned in. There are no guarantees Loose Id will buy it, but Red is such a nice little money-maker even after all these years, that I think they will. I won't let it go until I am absolutely positive I won't hide under the bed when reviews come out though...

Funny thing though, I started rereading it this week after talking to kel_reiley about writing original fiction and I can see how far my tastes have changed. I would write the characters so differently now--stronger, more masculine. Ah well, that's the way it goes.

Sometimes I envy my fanfiction friends' their regular comments, the constant praise they get, so it is so nice every once in awhile to get something like this in my in box. Makes me feel like a writer too, even a good one, for a little while, instead of just the ghostly figure who floats behind Nick.

Back to work! Heck I haven't even reported on Armadillocon yet! I am doing Nano, too--torn between a few different things. Decisions decisions!