Why I Will Never Ask You

For the record, I did hit my 50,000 words on Thanksgiving morning. It was not a big moment; I knew I'd get there, and I knew once I did that I likely wouldn't be done telling the story. Both of those things came to pass. The motivation to push forward is certainly less now that I've reached that bar, and honestly my word count is already well below 50,000 again since I've started putting it through the revisions it needs before it sees the light of day.

And it's that light of day that we're discussing today. A few posts back I asked who wanted to read this when it was done, and I did get a few responses. If you were one of these people, I'll have a .pdf copy of the whole thing on its way to you the moment it's ready, which will be in the coming week. And I'm glad people did ask, because other than a handful of loyal beta readers I've collected over the years, it's very possible this manuscript that has absolutely eaten me alive over the past month will never be seen by anyone else. Because I have completely given up on asking people to read anything I write.

To clarify: I want people to read what I write, but I will never again* ASK anyone to read something I've written. I want people to read this book, even if it turns out they don't like it much. I still want people to read "Emily," even if all I see in it are flaws right now. I still want people to read "Infinity," because it's just THAT GOOD, and even "Two Years" if they aren't afraid of just how deep into the darkest part of my life it's going to take them. But here's the thing: I've had too many experiences when someone casually discovers that I write books. There's that moment of surprise when they discover something new about me, especially since writing books isn't really the most common of hobbies. And since its kind of an intellectual exercise, people are generally at least a little impressed to find out that someone they know even bothers trying to do it. But you know what? It rarely, RARELY goes beyond that. Example: Someone I know overheard me talking to someone about writing. Their reaction: "You write BOOKS?!?" and then the usual excited follow-up questions. So the next day I asked if she wanted to read one and of course she said she did.

It's been two months.

To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't even started it yet. And I'm not picking on this one person, but using her as an example of what it's always like when you approach someone and ask if they'd like to read something you wrote. Anyone polite will say yes, and then either read it or forget they have it until they guiltily return it unread. And I'm not someone really looking for new ways to be rejected -- I've got my dating life for that. But that's what it feels like when your book gets set aside that way. So I won't do it. I won't ask anyone specifically.

Now, on the other hand, when people ARE interested and motivated, it's very different. Someone approaches you because they heard about your book from someone else and were intrigued? Great. That's what you want as a writer. Not just to be read, but to be read by someone who WANTS to read you. When you invest so much of yourself into creating something you believe in, you want to share it with people. But not in a way that makes them feel like they're taking on extra homework just to be nice.

I hope this isn't coming across as bitter; it really isn't meant to be. I'm just at a point right now where it's not as important to me for a lot of people to read my writing as it would be for a smaller group of interested people to read it.

So if you want to read the new book -- now officially titled "Iridescent" -- and you have already said so, you'll see it soon. If you would like to, let me know. Or if you'd like to read any of the others I've done, let me know.

But I won't ask.

*and all of this will change if I ever get a book deal and I start trying to get people to buy multiple copies; I'm pretty sure I'll become insufferable in my self-promotion at that point