Brey Willows

Card 26, Writing Down the Bones: What are you reaching for?

How honest should I be? Well, this project is about working shit out and being honest, so…

Validation.

I’m fully aware that comparison is the thief of happiness. I’m fully aware that we’re all on our own journeys and that we get where we get to when we get there. I know that not everyone can be a superstar.

But god damn it, when will I be one of the cool kids?

I struggle with my feelings of mediocrity anyway. If I even make it all the way up the ladder to mediocre, some days. But I honestly work hard at my craft. I do everything I can to keep getting better at my writing. I keep reading, keep taking courses, keep reminding myself of my writer ticks and trips so I can weed them out.

We tell authors that they have to be happy with the craft of writing, because validation via reviews, sales, or favorites list on social media is bound to be a road to the Pits of Not Good Enough. You write for the love of writing and getting your stories out there, and at the end of the day, knowing you did your best to do that is what it’s about.

Do as I say, not as I do…

Two different requests for “your favorite authors” went out last week, and as usual I wasn’t on either. No matter how many readers send me messages to say, “I loved it” I never make any of those god damn lists. The cool kid authors always up there? They’re really great people. Readers love their work, and that’s awesome.

I just really wish I could be in the mix too. And I’ve always felt this way. I was never the cool kid at school. I was always odd, always a little sideways, the one who ate alone in the library because I was most certainly no one’s favorite back then, either. University life was the same. Always on the fringes, desperate to fit in. Desperate to be liked.

Desperation isn’t a good look on anyone, is it?

And yet I continue to seek that validation. I continue to lay in bed, looking at the ceiling, and wonder what I’m doing wrong. What could I do better? Especially after my last book flopped face down in a puddle, the pages quickly going soggy. Write to market. Write more romance. Write, write, write. Maybe one day my name will pop up in someone’s mind when that favorite question gets asked.

Or maybe I’ll stay midlist mediocre. But I’ll keep writing anyway.