
What If You Succeed?
It’s the weekend and the editing process for book 2 has begun!
I’m once again working with Refine Editing and going through the same three-stage process of manuscript assessment, line edit, and copy edit. What’s different this time around though, as I await the delivery of the manuscript assessment, is that I’m feeling the butterflies of anticipation.
The first time I delivered book 1, I felt calm and was fully prepared for the high level review of the assessment to be devastating. Since that was my first book ever, my expectation was that I’d get torn apart and called out as the fraud I was sure I was for trying to randomly take on this author thing . . .
Alright, that might be exaggerated just a bit ;)
I felt at the time that I did have something worth the effort to have edited, but despite that confidence I certainly wasn’t expecting praise of any kind.
When the assessment did arrive, the review part of the feedback for the story was glowing in a lot of ways. Though there was certainly a lot of technical work to be done, I literally cheered and laughed maniacally at all the positives which were pointed out about the story itself. With Crimson River now published, I’ve also gotten great reviews and feedback thus far.
However, this is the scary part about book 2 as the following question burns in my mind: Am I still a fraud?

Again, kind of tongue in cheek, but also kind of not. Basically, what I think it comes down to is a fear of success and living up to that success in the future.
What if book 2 sucks? What if every book/story I ever write in the future sucks?
The answer: It doesn’t matter!
The reason: At the time I started writing on my freshman effort — one measly year ago — my life was just coming back together after a tough period of transition. It took time, a move, a bunch of other activities, and a dog to get me in the head-space I needed to be in to start something new. Eventually though, I got there. In a way, maybe at first I was writing for therapy. But from the first minute of it to the last I was taking what I was doing very seriously.
As I continued to write, the obstacle was never really what, “they,” would all think of my work, but how much I believed in the story I wanted to tell. To create despite the deep fear of how your creative expression will change you as a person, takes a lot more courage than it does to hit the, “send,” button. The same goes for any other creative process you might be working on too!
All in all, completing the writing for book 2 was a triumph in itself because I learned that my passion for story-telling is very much real. Whatever comes of the assessment or any future assessment, I loved writing this dark, emotional, gritty, hopeful story and I look forward to doing it again on book 3 and beyond!

Some side notes and other journey updates:
- To the right is the book 2 dedication, which is for the best brother a guy could have. I really like having fun with my dedications and I think being a songwriter probably contributes to the fact that they are mostly pretty rhyme-y and/or poem-y.
- I recently finished writing the episode 1 teaser scene for my first ever screenplay! I am way too excited to be writing the Civilands series in TV screenplay format and will keep you posted on my experiences with that as they develop.
- The season 1 screenplay, publishing book 2, and writing book 3 will be my official goals for the rest of 2017.
- My Happy Monday blog posts have begun and I can’t believe the impact sharing positive news has already had on my mindset overall. I will unfortunately miss this coming Monday, but be prepared to have your faith in the world restored at the start of each week going forward!
As always, thanks so much for reading, I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have below, and hope you’re enjoying the Civilands series!

