Ummm, There Are PEOPLE Reading My Books

Opening up an epic can of "Duh!"

You know what's funny?  A writer who never considered the realities of getting their work published.  


Seriously, you'd think it would have occurred to me at some point that people would be reading my work, right?  But no.  Never once did that thought seriously cross my mind.  I was so busy studying the craft of HOW to write, which publishing company I should send my stuff to, and learning the basic ropes of the publishing world, that I forgot to imagine what it'd be like once I GOT there.



Then ZERO FACTOR came out, and a funny thing happened.  I began running into people who'd read it, and that's when it hit me like a bowling ball between the eyes -- I was unprepared.



Example:  The first-ever encounter of someone who read my work (who wasn't a relative:P) was a lovely woman whom I've known my entire adult life.  She's fifty-something and a lady in every sense of the word, so imagine my slack-jawed surprise when she let me know right off the bat that ZF had gotten her "motor going" in a way that it hadn't "in years."  My face got hot in what I fear was a mortified blush, but I laughed, told her how pleased I was to hear it, and how glad I was that she enjoyed it.



Though honestly, I'm still unsure if she ENJOYED it.  I hope she did.




Then came the inevitable questions.  How did I know so much (about sex)?  How did I do my research (about sex)?  Where did my ideas (about sex) come from?  Eep.  Overnight I went from mild-mannered skater-gurl to hyper nymphomaniac.  It's kind of eyeroll-worthy, but mainly it's just hilarious.  Yup, there's definitely sex in most of my works, but then there's also psychometry, airship-building and in one of the latest works I just completed, flying (like, with wings ^_^).  Does this mean I've done all these things and am now an expert?  Heh.  Only in my mind, folks.  Only in my mind.





I'm prepared now.  My next release, BEST MAN, WORST MAN, from Samhain Publishing is coming out next month.  Yay!  This particular novella has no actual sex in it, since it was written for a "sweet" anthology ("sweet" being a romance work without graphic sex or language).  Long story short, I didn't make the anthology.  Come to find out, it was way too hot to be categorized as "sweet".  But it was good enough to be offered a stand-alone contract.  And when it comes out, I'll gladly welcome the inevitable questions with now-standard answers, like:



1.  Where do you get your ideas?/Oh, here and there.
2.  How do you do your research?/The same way everyone does it.
3.  Why don't you write about me?/It might be a good idea for you to write your story yourself.  You could be a writer and not even know it. :)


Ultimately, if you're a writer who's either trying to get published or your first work is about to debut -- GET READY.  There are people out there who are about to read your work.  That is a wonderful and glorious thing, so be grateful for any interest they show in what you do.  Hopefully you'll be smarter than me, and have those answers ready to go, without suffering from a nuclear blush and a bad case of the stutters.