TGIF!!!!!! I’ve almost made it through the week. One more day and then I can sleep a little later than the butt-crack of dawn! But that’s all the relaxing I get to do.
I haven’t posted on my blog since the beginning of the week because I’ve been posting on other blogs, keeping Kiss and Tell Girls afloat while everyone was at RT, doing interviews, the party last night at the Samhain Cafe…promotion for Sweet Caroline.
The title of this post is apt and appropriate. I have received a few emails over the last few days and the last few months from readers, comments from editors, lectures from bloggers and fellow authors, and tweets from some that I deeply admire and to say that I am touched and humbled is a severe understatement.
Samantha Kane bought my book. I love her. She’s a friend and an amazing author to me, one of the first I ever read in eBook, and that she bought my book, well, that just floored me.
To hear from friends, other authors, book bloggers, editors, and readers that you’re awesome, that your writing touches them, that you’re amazing, that you’ve given them more than they hoped…there really are no words to say to that. Thank you doesn’t even begin to cover the incredible feeling and elation that is inside at their thoughts and opinions. It’s a high like you can not imagine, but it’s a humbling high.
There are those that won’t like your writing, that won’t like your blog posts, that won’t give a shit about you at all. Those that will insult your intelligence, put you down, kick you while you’re there, and totally miss the whole point. I’ve been on that end of it too and that is a dark place but it is a humbling place to be as well. That is when you have to realize that you can either stay down or get up.
Since the release last year of Pink Buttercream Frosting, I have experienced those humbling highs and those humbling lows. I have received very good book blogger reviews, bad book blogger reviews, bad reader reviews, and amazingly inspiring reader reviews.
And so many people loved Simple Need. They loved Elise but man oh man they loved Vinter and the emails I have received about that book are overwhelmingly sweet. On the book page at Ellora’s Cave, readers can rate the book and leave comments. There’ve been good and there’ve been not so good comments and ratings. The one I read last night made me laugh and smile and want to hug the reader.
And since Tuesday of this week, Sweet Caroline has touched one reader very deeply and her email brought tears to my eyes it was so…
I am going to post some of the comments I’ve received over the months because… if you have a book that you love, that has touched you in a way you didn’t expect, tell the author. Please. They may respond and they may not, but tell them. I for one, try to respond. I don’t get them all the time, I don’t even get them often, but when I do, I try to respond and at least say Thank You.
There’s really so many things about Sweet Caroline that I loved, I’d love to do a little review sort of thing. I just wanted to thank you for being GREAT and for writing books that mean a lot to me. Sweet Caroline was so beautifully natural as I have come to expect from you but it was the way they were so on the same wavelength, the maturity of the story and the characters, it’s the kind of relationship I dream of.
LOVED IT. Understatement.
I do what I do because I love it. I write because I love it. I create so that I can give it to others for their pleasure.
I have to say that readers, whether they like my books or not, are awesome and I have met some wonderful readers who have become friends, editors that I consider friends, authors that are friends, and bloggers that are as well. I have met some of the most amazing and talented people and while being an author sucks sometimes (this would be when the words just won’t flow), it is the most rewarding (and I don’t mean monetarily) profession. It’s got nothing to do with sitting in pajamas all day, or drinking boatloads of coffee…it’s because of what I posted above.
So, to my readers, thank you. It doesn’t seem enough, those two little words, but there really is an awful lot of feeling in them.
And, y’all don’t mind if I post the cover again, do you? Nah, I didn’t think so…
And just a heads up… My next release is May 11 from Loose Id. Stick Shift. I’m going to have a release party here on my blog for a couple days. As I get the details more worked out, I’ll be posting it, but we’re gonna have a party.
Have a great weekend!
~lissa
