A Writer's Week #8: The Kindness of Friends

Tonight was one of those nights that reminded me how blessed and fortunate I am. It was also a reminder of what's really important. As a writer trying to market my book, I can start fixating on how many books I've sold, how frequently they sell, and how to market the thing.

I have to say that I'm a terrible marketer because I don't like to toot my own horn. I've been trying to overcome that over the last three and a half months since The Deliverers: Sharky and the Jewel was published. So, like I said it's hard not to obsess about it all.

But really, that's not important. What is important, and I've written about this before, are the children that come up to me to tell me that they liked the book, and will I be writing another. It's the children, and a surprising number of adults, who tell me they've always wanted to write a book, and how much they admire the hard work and dedication it must have taken to follow my dream and actually do something they've always wanted to do.

Sometimes I lose sight of that. My wife Stephanie always reminds me of the fact, but it usually takes others saying it to really open my eyes. Like tonight. We went to a fish fry that our church was hosting. It was packed, and we knew a good portion of the people there.

We sit down, and a few people come up and congratulated me on the book. One mother introduces her son who loves to write. It all feels good. So we're sitting talking to another family, and another lady we know comes up. She's a teacher, and we had given her some bookmarks to hand out at her school. She came and asked us if we had any more bookmarks. Luckily we did. We gave them to her and she starts going to all the tables, handing them out.

Now, I would never have had the guts to do that myself. I don't want to be too pushy. That's why I'm not a salesperson. But her act of kindness and belief, and even pride, in me was really something that no amount of book sales could match. Will anyone buy the book as a result? Who knows. But knowing that friends are there to help spread the word is so uplifting.

That's just the latest example of friends who have spread the word. There have been other examples too numerous to mention. I appreciate and am flabbergasted by it all. Thanks.

Now, after all that you might be wondering how the writing went this week. Well, I managed to write 1,400 words, which was less than I had hoped. For those of you keeping score at home, that brings me into chapter 18 and up to a little more than 15,000 words. Still a long way to go, but I'll keep plugging.

The story will have to move forward now that most of The Deliverers are reunited. The going might get slower, or I could be inspired. We'll have to see what happens. I'll let you know next week.