I’m me. An everyday person with a life full of family, occasional drama, births, deaths, marriages, and health bombshells.
As an aside, health events are always a bombshell. No one ever sees them coming… those sideswipes that fill your brain with paralysing worry, but I digress… where was I? Success.
I accidentally wrote a book series. Yes, that sounds weird, but it is true. Okay, I was good at English at school. I read my way through my childhood and teenage years, but then nada, just living the mother, family, for three decades. And before you leap out of your seat, I consider raising three children a huge success.
Just as empty nest syndrome loomed on my horizon, a bizarre collision of inspiration and compulsion made me write a short story that refuses to stop growing. It was all consuming, and the feeling of obsession, being driven, was exhausting.
My success is that I managed to pour my heart out onto paper – well, laptop, but you get what I mean.
Now, I hunger for readers and the process of getting their attention is bewildering and complex. So, do I measure my success on the act of writing, or am I a failure unless I attract a fan base?
The elation at getting 5 star reviews certainly settled the anxiety when I put my work – my heart – out there, but if I’m honest, no matter how hard I push that boulder, getting the ball rolling and transforming it into an avalanche of readers – good grief! That’s not just a mixed metaphor, that’s a metaphor crash – erm, as I was saying, getting the ball rolling and transforming it into an avalanche of readers feels impossible.
On that measure, I’m failing, but I’m not giving up.
Karen Payton Holt 