Author Connie Suttle

Author Connie Suttle:
Urban Fantasy/ Young Adult

Monday, November 11, 2013

Thursday, November 7, 2013

A Writer* Writes

I published Blood Wager (according to Amazon) on June 27, 2011. Since then, I've published 24 more books. That's 25 books in 29 months. I'm working on #26, #27 and #28 now, with several others just waiting for me to do something about them.
Yes, Blood Finale is getting the lion's share of attention.
What I'm writing about today deals with publishing, though.
I self-publish. Most of the people who will read this blog know that already. For those of you who haven't gone back to read the early blogs, however, I'll say this: I didn't always intend to be a writer. It was a fantasy I considered from time to time, and I even wrote a few things down through the years. I never really intended to publish them.
Really.
I always was a reader, though. I loved stories. I still do.
How and when did I start writing, then?
I started writing seriously in 2007, when my husband almost died. I sat in his hospital room in ICU and handwrote a story that had been floating through my mind for several years. No, you haven't read that story yet. Hope and Vengeance (book #28), will appear early next year if all goes according to plan.
That's when I became addicted to writing. In a hospital room in 2007. At first, it was just an escape—from the fear of what I faced at that time. After all, I'd been told by doctors that my husband might not live.
I worried that he'd die.
I worried that he'd never be the same.
I worried about the bills and a multitude of other things that tend to rear their ugly head in the midst of trouble.
If you think I'm kidding, consider this—imagine that you're there with me, after a doctor tells me that my husband is bleeding internally and if they have to do surgery to make repairs, he'll die. No chance of survival—he'll die.
Then comes one of the worst ice storms the area has seen in years, and you find yourself having to find an electrician because the weight of the ice on the power lines outside one of our rent houses has caused the electric meter to pull away from the house, resulting in an emergency for everybody involved. I was looking for an electrician to fix it while people were pretty much expecting my husband to die.
Yes, I kept writing.
Because I couldn't sleep—even after my husband came home, went through therapy and eventually went back to work. As a result of getting maybe three or four hours of sleep a night, I wrote A LOT.
Several writers have said in the past (some in the present) that you have to write a million words before writing anything worthwhile.
I wrote my million words.
Actually, I wrote more than that (12+ books) before I decided that the next one I wrote (Blood Wager) was good enough (by my standards) to publish. That was in 2011.
Since then, I've read a truckload of stuff on publishing, mostly on the self or indie variety.
If you've paid any attention to the publishing industry, you've probably read some of the same stuff.
A lot of people—including those who have self-published some of their work, often get on a soapbox and announce that most (if not all) self-published books are CRAP.
Thatit'stooeasytohitthepublishbuttonanduploadstuffthatnobodyshouldeverhavetoseebecauseit'slikewatchingsexormurderorpoodleabuseinpublic.
Indie authors are often viewed as being at the same level of appreciation as ax murderers. That we're just not smart enough—or good enough—to get published by traditional means. Therefore, anything we publish must be CRAP.
Oh, and did I say that indie authors aren't REAL authors? I've read that, too. That we're not real, bona fide authors. The most we can claim (and it may be a stretch) is that we're writers.
Maybe we ought to start putting an asterisk next to the word writer* when we describe ourselves. Sort of like in baseball, when they're trying to indicate that a record may have been affected by performance-enhancing drugs or something.
June 27, 2011
Since then, I've published 25 books.
Sold more than 250,000 of them.
And I'm not an author.
No agent has ever contacted me.
For the past two years, I've paid more in taxes than I used to make at Borders in an entire year as a manager (see previous statement).
So many people think I (and other indie writers*) will just throw up our hands and quit writing. Some of us may.
I don't intend to.
Writing is in my blood, now. I am infected and it's likely to be a terminal disease. That means (for those of you who might worry about things like that) that as long as I have a brain and hands that work, I'll be writing.
Nobody may read it after a while, but that doesn't mean the disease will go away.
I have too many things to write before I die.

I'm just sorry I didn't get started on it sooner.