Apologies, and Hope

First of all, I apologize for missing my promised blog post yesterday, but I was away from 3am Saturday morning until 1am Sunday morning, and my phone died. So, you get a double dose. Here are the third and fourth things you didn't know about Corruption:

3. Corruption was written while listening to mainly three songs. All of them are from the Prince of Egypt.
Deliver Us
The Plagues
Playing with the Big Boys Now

For some reason the songs just worked with the rhythm of the book, even when I was working with different characters. My ipod was probably so sick of them by the end of it. At one point I sat for about three hours in Starbucks and wrote with them on repeat. I'm hoping it did some to help a consistent mood and tempo through the book, something that I occasionally have trouble with. And, you know, they're fun.

4. Corruption started with a simple "what if?" question. What if religion was banned? November was approaching, and I knew I wanted to write something for NaNoWriMo, I just wasn't sure what. So, I made a list of what if questions, picked that one, and went from there. The prologue I had spent much of October 31st imagining in my head, so that when midnight rolled around, I sat with my group of writer friends and finished the prologue before bed. Everything else just kind of came on its own from there.

Now, onto the reason why I was gone all day. I had the good fortune of being able to visit much of my "second family." I am a third generation breeder and exhibitor of rough collies, and there was a breeder's seminar about four hours from the house that my grandfather, my mother, and I attended, along with about 100 others. Aside from having a wonderful time, I got to speak with a friend of mine who has been helping me with Corruption. She is hoping to get into the publishing field as well, though as an agent or editor. Due to life circumstances for both of us, she didn't get a chance to finish editing Corruption before I wanted it available, so whenever she finishes I'll be releasing a second edition with her edits.

More importantly though, we just had a chance to talk. She told me how far she had gotten so far, now much she liked it. How she was already talking it up to people, not out of any feelings of obligation, but because she liked it. Aside from unrealistic expectations, all authors have a primal fear that what they wrote is horrible, that as soon as it's released, it will tank. So to be validated that the writing itself is good, and the plotline is, too, is incredibly rewarding.

Even more rewarding is when she asked me about the importance of certain names and symbols to see if her guesses were right, and how elated she looked when I agreed with her. That is what I really want, is to people to read, pause, and think. I can't wait to have more discussions with my readers about these things, and each time Smashwords sends me an e-mail notifying me of a purchase, my day gets a bit better.

This is what I wanted. It's what I've wanted to do with my life since I was in middle school, even if I wasn't certain of that yet. Though I may not be able to make a living off of it, that's okay. I have the opportunity to share my art and my passion, and that is so very, very rewarding.