I was going to talk today about my favorite book, but instead I’m going to talk about support. We all need support in anything we do, and sometimes the person who we expect to give it the most falls through. Or not only falls through, but obliterates any semblance of support you might have thought you had from them. It is at those times that you must truly love what you do.
So let me ask you: Why do you write?
Is it because you love to? Do you write because there is a story that you must get out? Whether or not anyone reads it? Are you editing because you want to send your story out and be published and become the Next Big Thing? Or because you love your characters and story so much that you want it to be the best it can be? Because it deserves it?
I decided long ago to work on Fie Eoin because I love the story, and I love the characters, and they deserve to be the best and truest that they can be. I could shut down the blog and destroy the website tomorrow and go back to being just a chemist, but I could not give up on Kindra and Kaye, or Rebecca and Lane, or any of the others. I would still write. I would still edit. I would still try to make their stories the best that I could because they bring so much joy to me and because they deserve it.
I know it’s hard, folks. I know you have doubts, and sometimes that supportive person rips those beams out from under you and it feels as if you are falling into a pit of “I can’t do this” and “it will never be good enough”. But you know what? Those characters that you love have been shot and stabbed and betrayed and left for dead, and they survived.
And so will you.
And if you love it enough, and fight for it enough, so will your story.