I was googling and found a review of my book,  Jake Bowers Versus the Firebird, (I’m going to use the acronym JBvFB on this site) on Tamara Dares to Write. The article was titled – “A-Z Challenge: Z is for Ziggurat, and the Unexpected Truth About Newbie Authors.”

There was one thing in particular that I loved from that post –

Good authors aren’t all published by the big companies. Good authors struggle to get their writing out there. They aren’t well-known, their books aren’t being made into movies, but their writing is compelling and imaginative. Their stories are heart-warming, and I believe these stories will be remembered in the mind of the reader for years to come.

I agree. I think that there are some amazing writers out there. With the rise of new media, new outlets, tools that allow for everyday creation rather than total consumerism, I am so pleased that other voices are having a chance to be heard.

I am excited to get to know Tamara. She is clever and witty and I found myself laughing as I read through her posts. She has written two books that seem quite exciting Raze (Shine, Book 6) and Never Say Reven (Shine, Book 10). I read the sample chapters and they are  compelling and at a price of $0.99, a total steal! I am excited to dig into them. They are also very quick reads, novellas (under 100 pages in length). The Shine series was started by William Bernhardt and after he wrote the first five in the world, he asked other authors to write in the series as well. What a great idea.

I also wanted to mention that I LOVE the title of Tamara’s blog – ‘Tamara Dares to Write’. What wonderful self-talk. I just read an article about the power of self-talk – How a Password Changed My Life, by Mauricio Estrella. I often do a lot of negative self-talk about my writing.

Creation causes such angst. We see each imperfection, each flaw, and see the failure of our work instead of the success. I love this quote from Kathryn Shulz’s TED talk, Don’t Regret Regret to remind me about keeping my doubts in check –

Keep reading and happy creating everyone!