Let's Pretend You Asked

If you had asked me what I wanted after I published The Promises We Keep - if you had asked me to really think about what I wanted my writing career to look like, and if I would have been honest - I would have told you I wanted a miracle.

100,000 readers, or something like that. It didn't need to happen over night - I wasn't that crazy - but I wanted an audience that grew. I didn't want fame, and it wasn't about fortune, I just wanted people to read my stories. Not just read them, but enjoy them. I wanted them to be hungry for more and anxious to pick up each upcoming novel. I wanted to be known, but in that anonymous way, where no one knew what I looked like or what the R in R.C. stood for.

That was more than three years ago.

If you had asked me what I wanted after I published Worthy of the Melody - if you had asked me, after being in the game for a year, whether or not I wanted the same thing as I did in the beginning- the truth would not have been hard to come by.

100 readers, or something like that. They were who I wanted. I didn't care about making a list. I had far more realistic expectations than that. I merely wanted readers to care. Not about me, but about my characters - the ones I'd spent so much time developing. I wanted the readers who had read the first book in the series and claimed they loved it to love it until the end. I wanted them.  I needed them to convince me I should keep going.

They didn't.

But I still had stories to tell.

That was more than a year ago.

If you had asked me what I wanted after I published Chasing After Me, I wouldn't have hesitated to proclaim I wanted another book even half as successful as that one. And if you had asked me what I wanted after I published Tethered, all I'd be able to do was shrug and tell you I didn't know anymore.

That was four months ago.

But if you were to ask me right now, if you were to ask me to explain what I might change about my career or what I want it to look like in the future, I'd have the most satisfying answer; an answer I never saw coming.

Let's pretend you asked.

I want my writing career to look exactly like it looks now. I couldn't tell you if I have 100 readers or 10; and you know what? It doesn't matter. Not to me. Not anymore. No one has ever been able to convince me to keep going, to keep publishing, to keep dreaming up stories - and you know why? Because no one has ever been qualified to do so. Nobody but me. And in spite of my fair share of disappointment and dashed hopes, I have not given up. This is my writing career, after all, and I've worked too hard to throw it away. I love it too much to give it all up. And if you're reading this blog, I appreciate you so much for sticking with me.

I used to live in a world where it was important for me to be on social media every day. I needed to be seen. I needed to be heard. Or, did you not know, online marketing is about much more than paid ads and blog tours? I was everywhere, doing everything - trying to keep up with the industry; trying to figure out the industry; trying to endure the industry. It was about hustling and grinding with no rest for the weary. For a long time, I was grasping at straws, trying what felt like everything to find something that was impossible to find. I had in my head this warped idea of what success looked like, and I was chasing it relentlessly. Then, one day I just stopped.

If the cost of 100,000 readers is giving everything I have and then a little bit more - that's no miracle, and I'm not interested.

That sounds lazy, or possibly defeated - but it's not either of those things. If it's anything, it's freedom.

I now live in this peaceful place where an author rank or an Amazon review means so very little to me. I've come to learn those things are not for me, but for readers; and regardless of whether or not I have either of those things, my book is still there. It's still available. And someone will find it. And when they do, it's a little miracle. So, I guess, in a way - I'm getting precisely what I wanted in the very beginning. Except, even better.

Instead of one miracle, I get more than a few. 

I write books. I tell stories that I want to tell. I weave together tales in a way that only I can. And when I'm done, I publish them. Sometimes, I sell a couple - and that is amazing. No. More than amazing. It's a dream come true.