--NOBODY SAID IT WAS EASY

…Good news!  I signed my second book contract just now.  It’s another story collection called, “The Dark Sunshine” and will be coming out from Connotation Press next month.  Yeah, next month.

For the longest time, I thought this project was dead in the water and then all of a sudden everything took off and exploded.

I’m very excited.  Please do me a huge favor and be excited with me, for me.

Tomorrow I’m going to let everyone in the world know about it.

So now I start worrying about…

Will anyone read it, buy it?  How much does it matter?  (A friend told me 80% of all story collections sell less than 100 copies.  Yikes!)

How should I “market” it?

What’s the fine line between talking about the book and bragging about it, getting on people’s nerves?

…all that sort of thing is worrisome to me.

Ultimately, the way I’m going to look at is like this:  I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a nine year old boy.  I’m something of a writer now, finally, after all these years.  I get to do it full-time.  I’m lucky enough not to have to worry about making a living on the side.  I’m lucky enough to be part of a writing community, both locally and online.  I’ve had a ton of encouragement and support.

I’m just very, very lucky and right now I’m very glad.

…”Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude to any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way.”- Viktor Frankl, Nazi concentration camp survivor