Almost there...

I just rolled past 120,000 words, and I'm almost done with the first draft of Gart's Road. Yes, I know I'm running behind. Yes, I know that I've been saying 'almost' for quite a while now. And yes I know that there are some of you out there (bless you) that are eager to read my second installment in the series. Thank you for being patient.

I'm having so much fun with this one, but at the same time, I'll be very excited to get it finished at last. At least I've been about 20 times faster on Gart's Road than I was on MB! I'm getting there, word by word, I'm getting there. And I do hope that you all enjoy it.

As an indie author, I don't get the validation that I imagine comes with having a publishing deal from a big publishing house. I'm just doing the best I can and then throwing it out there in the hopes that folks enjoy the story. I admit that I worry that folks won't like it. Hey, I'm human...I have my moments of nervousness and worry that I'm not the next Raymond E Feist. I do realize that I never intended to be such, I just want to entertain my readers. It's a simple enough goal, but I still want to do it as well as I can, so I worry about it being 'good enough.'

When I get those feelings, I generally go read reviews that folks have written about books penned by my favorite authors. Books that are my FAVORITES, ones that I'd give a pinky toe if it meant being able to put out a story even close to their caliber, even those amazing books still get 1-star ratings. Occasionally, some of those 1-star reviewers have an awful lot to say about what they didn't like. Sometimes, it's nonsense. Other times, such reviewers make perfectly valid points regarding the story's shortcomings. In any event, such reviews serve to remind me that no matter how amazing I (or even a whole bunch of people) may believe a book to be, there will always be someone out there who thinks that it's crap. That's just how it goes. So no matter how hard I work on my book, no matter how confident I am with my own work, someone out there will say that it's not worth the paper that it's printed on. That's fine, I get that now.

On the other hand, some folks enjoy my work. One of my students, an intelligent and hardworking young lady, has made no bones about the fact that she LOVED my first book. She read it over the course of 3 days, if I remember correctly, and is constantly asking her mom to ask me how book 2 is coming along. She knows my story backwards and forwards, knows who the characters are, and may just die of anticipation as she waits for Gart's Road to come out.

She may never know how much that means to me as an author. Folks like her are out there, people who read Mage's Burden and enjoyed it a little or maybe even a whole lot. Either way, those that show enthusiasm towards my work deserve my diligent effort. I humbly thank you all, and I promise that you'll get the best story that I can set on the page. It's coming soon...really.