Friday, June 08, 2012

Otherkin - A Great Review!

I promise not to post here every time my book gets a good review. That would get tiresome fast. But this is my first novel, and this is the first "official" review I've seen of it.

It's at a blog called Paranormal Reads. Check it out here.

My head is spinning. Logically I know it's just one review on one blog. I know that there will be people who don't like the book for one reason or another. I'm braced for hate mail, honestly, even though my book isn't the controversial type that usually draws anger. But you never know. The world is big and wide and holds all kinds of opinions, and if you put your work out there, you have to be prepared for the consequences.

But a person I don't know read has my novel - and they liked it. And they wrote down in an official blog about books that they liked it. A lot. And they're looking forward to the next one.

That's just... freaky.

And fantastic.

Getting your first book published is this weird, slow entry into a whole new world. Or maybe it's the world that's entering you. And everything else.

As a writer, you spend so much time alone in front of your computer, living in the world you made, that it starts to seem real. Then you go to brunch with friends or talk to your Mom and you realize, duh,  nobody else is living in that world. It's not real, you silly writer, you!

Then, after a long long LONG time, if you're lucky and you work hard and persist, the book gets bought and you move toward it being published. Someone gives you money for your writing, and they give you notes to make it better, and you realize the world you thought was yours alone now belongs to a few other people besides.

Your private world, which was once just a thought in your head, has become a shared dream.

Then it gets listed on Amazon as copy writers step in and polish it up, and cover artists give you a gorgeous visual glimpse, and the advance copies go out to reviewers.  Dozens of people have knowledge of the world you made.

The shared dream has become instead a hologram, popping into our world like Princess Leigh emanating from R2-D2's projector. It's isolated, far from life-sized, and you can put your hand through it, but it resembles the real thing if you squint.

Then a reviewer comments, and people post about it on Goodreads, and the world you created isn't just an isolated Princess Leia-like hologram. It's as if the book world has begun infiltrating the fabric of the real world, warping things till they resembles the made-up world just a little.

See? I told you. It's freaky.

I can't wait to see what happens when the book is actually released!

1 comment:

Leo Bullock said...

I was supposed to move away from my keyboard and go make lunch after I made the last comment....but....if your blog was a book I haven't yet been able to put it down haha

The way you explained how it felt having someone else reading your work was wonderful. I almost imagined it was me experiencing it instead :)

Really top stuff, and now I relly must do some lunch!!

I hope to talk soon.

Leo (Hatcheapsuit)