It’s amazing how much work there is after you spend hours and days and months and years writing that novel, after revision and editing and re-revising and editing. Late nights, early mornings, weekends, all sacrificed to crafting and perfecting your masterpiece, making sure the word count doesn’t balloon into ridiculousity and you’re keeping your target audience in mind. Ensuring there’s tension on every page, a strong story arc, character development, proper grammar and punctuation, watching for repetitive word use and clichés, chapters ending in excitement, etc. Dang, sooo many processes go into creating a good novel—and that was just the tip of the iceberg! Then you let people rip it to shreds, which leads to more re-writes, which leads to more editing….

After all that, for me anyway, comes the really hard and scary part…writing that query letter and synopsis, researching agents, and hunting for that rare publisher that takes unsolicited submissions. Some want a one page synopsis, some want two. Some want a bio in that query letter. How do you sum up the soul of your labor of love in a one page business letter that may well go into a slush pile when an agent looks at the word count?

Some agents want it mailed with a SAS envelope, some want it emailed but only in PDF, some won’t open attachments. And while you’re waiting on pins and needles, hoping and praying that you’re at least worthy of a rejection letter (as opposed to them being too busy to even respond), making sure you’re working on your blogging and twittering and amassing followers.

Wow, why do we do it?

No, seriously, why?

For me, it’s because I just love to write—have since I was nine. I love creating complex characters, delving deep into their inner workings, then putting them in impossible situations to see what they do. I love going for a run and having random inspirations pop into my head. Thank God for my notepad app or I’d probably forget them by the time I get back to my condo! I love the natural high I get when the words are just flowing onto the page and I know I’m creating something beautiful. I love scrolling through my finished manuscript, seeing what came from my brain and my soul.

Will I be able to break into traditional publishing? There’s a chance; there’s always a chance. I’ve been rejected for other novels dozens of times. If I do, great. If I don’t, well I’ve created something I’m pretty damn proud of anyway. Like I said, I just love to write.

So about that social media platform…. Follow me and I’ll follow you. We can go on this adventure together.

Why do you write?