One of the things that prevented me from writing and releasing a book years ago was the fear of receiving horrible reviews. For someone like me, who wrestles the self-doubt inner demon on a daily basis, the inevitability of bad reviews was just too much.

But not too long ago, I read an interesting tidbit on a writing blog: go to some of your favorite books on Amazon and read the one-star reviews. So I did. And do you know what I found? Absolutely horrible reviews for the books I’ve loved. Some were so bad I almost wanted to cry for how they must’ve made the author feel, not only how they made ME feel. These reviewers were putting down some of the most influential books I’d ever read and loved. Some of them were quite nasty about it, too.

So this was an excellent exercise, and one that I’d highly recommend to any other writers who are like me and fighting  the self-doubt monster. It puts everything completely in perspective. And although I’ve been cautioned to not read any reviews once my book is released, I feel I need to, for several reasons. Not only to see what others have liked about it, but what they didn’t like. I’ve always been quite open to constructive criticism and post-release I won’t be any different. But I’ve steeled myself against getting too emotional about negative reviews, and promised myself I will not take them personally.

My hope is to find other weirdos like me who like my book as much as I do. Make no mistake: I LOVE my book. I love my characters. I wrote the book I wanted to read, and even though I’ve read it about fifty times by now through all of the revisions and edits, I still smile and laugh at certain parts. And although I’m impatient to release it and hope it finds others who love it just as much, I must make sure it’s a quality product. I won’t put my name on anything less.

To that end, here’s a quick update on status of Legacy: in final proofing stage, roughly 75% complete. I anticipate book launch in about two weeks, or just after Lughnasadh. More to come on that.

In the meantime, I haven’t worked on Book Two for the past couple of weeks, but I’m really looking forward to getting back to work on it. There’s some really good stuff happening in it. And most likely it’ll be about 25% longer than Book One.