Learning not to cave

Pressure. It is my biggest foe. As old as I am I should have thicker skin, but I don't. I nearly caved last night over a negative review amongst many great ones. Keyword: Nearly.

If not for great friends that pointed out the obvious to me, it would have been a bad day, but it wasn't. Not everyone is going to like my book. I get that. I can't please everyone. I get that too. This genre of book is overdone, has been ridden hard and put up wet. Pun intended.

I tried to give it a new twist with a stronger heroine. I think, as many others do, that I succeeded. Chance is strong, yet vulnerable. Slightly egotistical, yet endearing. Yes, some parts of me are in her character. I am those things as well, so I have been told.

Some of my besties thought I was stuck up when I was younger. That my nose was in the air as if I was too good to get to know them as people. Fact was, I was too shy. I was comfortable only around those that I knew. New friends had to earn my trust. That is Chance.

I dealt with abuse when I was a preteen, as a teenager, and yet again as an adult. It was not talked about and my mind erased it for a long time, until caring family reminded me. It wasn't easy dealing with it and I know a lot of my issues with people stem from it. This is Chance as well, but she remembers it. I tend to lock it away and leave it alone.

As a new writer and as a person, I need verification or affirmation, if you will, from others. One never wants to give away their weaknesses to those who intend you harm, but I tend to be an open book. Heart on the sleeve and all that mush.

Pressure comes with waiting for said affirmation. It is waiting on those that hold your life in their hands that terrify me to an extent. I just have to hope that the book blogs out there that are holding, and reading my book, are with the 99 percentile of reviews that are already written in the virtual halls of bookdom.

I will not cave again to someone trying to tear down what I put my heart and soul into, but instead do better, work harder, and prove to the world that I am a true story teller. The stories are there. I intend to write them, and me? I am just waiting to yell to to world:

I am here! You naysayers cannot defeat me, intimidate me, and I am not going anywhere!

Blessings,

Jo