A Writer's Week #35: Great Feedback

I think I've mentioned before that writing is a solitary business. When I write, I have to hide myself away from the family and woe be unto them if they disturb me. It just wrecks my concentration. So for me, I'm always writing on borrowed time--time that I could (maybe should) be spending working in the yard or spending with the family.

Then there's promoting the book(s) that are already out there. You tweet, you have a Facebook page, a blog, stop in occasionally at Goodreads, make sure your Amazon author page is up to date, go on school visits. But all this, especially if you're self-published, is done on your own. I find I'm like a babe in the woods with this stuff--I'm not a marketer.

So, it's nice when you receive positive feedback. It can make you feel so good and uplift you so much in the tough promotional slog. This week, I received some fantastic feedback. Every so often I go to Book Blogs to share what's going on here at The Deliverers blog. One day, Ara, My Book and My Coffee left me a comment saying that they enjoyed my blog and were now following it. I checked out her blog and saw that she wrote some fabulous reviews, so I asked her if she'd be interested in reviewing The Deliverers.She said yes, so I sent her the book.

Earlier this week, she posted the most flattering review I could ever hope to receive. Here's a link. To give you an idea of the tone of the review, here's the lead:

“A fantastic, poignant, and flawless story. This book made me want to dream more and be a 12-year-old again, and join the main character’s next journey. Yes, I want a sequel." 

Great stuff. Here's something from the body of the review:

 "Seriously, I don’t have any complaints about this book. As in nothing. That rarely happens. It’s kinda strange to me as well, and I'm very happy about it."

Nice. Oh what the heck, here's another snippet:

" I found the writing and the flow of the story to be flawless (I know, I always thought that there’s no such thing - but then again, that’s just me). This book will purposely explain the things you will need to know to be in the loop but the author knew when to hold and give out a certain information so as to give you a chance to wonder and keep reading for more. So, there's room for guessing and proving that you're a bad guesser - well, that's just me again."

Sorry, but praise like that makes part of me blush and say "Aw shucks," while another part wants to shout it from the rooftops. Anyway, what all this comes down to is just that it's nice to be recognized. Sometimes it seems like the recognition comes all too slowly, which can raise doubts about how good your book is. Feedback like this restores my faith. Thanks Ara.

This review also came at a good time, because not much has been happening over the summer in terms of promotion or sales. I'm looking forward to resuming school visits later this year. Talking to the kids about writing, my book, and getting their feedback is the greatest morale boost you can get. I'm looking forward to getting out there and seeing everyone soon!

Oh yeah, you're probably wondering how things went on the writing front this week. I fell short of my weekly goal of 2,000. I only wrote 1,400. I'm at about 44,400 words for The Deliverers 2 so far--197 pages. Eric & Co. have run into someone that can help them, but I'm not sure if it's a little too coincidental or not. That kind of slowed me down, and I still don't have it entirely resolved in my head.

For now, I'm going to just power through and head on toward the climax and resolution. I want to get the first draft done by the middle of October. I'll save the final decision on this latest development for the editing and rewrite stage.

Oh my, I've rambled on quite a bit. Oh well. All in all it was a great week. Check back here next week. Depending how things work out, I may have a wonderful development to tell you about!