Most Likely

It would seem with all I blog about I’d include more about my books. I should be all over the Internet looking for opportunities to show-case my work. There are reasons I don’t do this, which reminds me of the time when I came out with my first set of books. I was out at a restaurant with my mother meeting a young woman who was giving me ideas of places to host my first book party. It was the funniest, and coolest, and really quite inspirational meeting listening to this woman pumping up my books, right there in the restaurant! In less than a few minutes she had a couple of tables, plus the owner of the restaurant interested in my books.

'See! See! Girl…everybody is interested! Look at them sales you got right there!' And then she went on to track two: 'How many books did you say you’ve written…' and without a break she continued, with all the spare flavorings, '…because if it was me, I’d be out in the middle of the street selling them books!' And the street I’m seeing, visualizing her standing in the divider lane handing out books, is the street the restaurant is located on…a very busy street with a lot of traffic. In fact, it’s not a street, but an Avenue.

While this show of support is encouraging, to include family who often introduce me as ‘the writer’, what excites me is the internal rivalry I have going on. Guessing which books I anticipate capturing more love. That’s what this post is about. Which book is most likely to succeed…over the others I’ve written?

It’s the fun part, actually the best part of the writing process. While I’m writing books, or actually as each story idea is forming, I’m rarely thinking this way. At the idea, and then writing phase, I’m solely story focused. My main goal is to dig my heels in and come up, CLEAN, with a solid beginning, middle, and ending. Choosing the style, mood, and voice consumes my thoughts, along with anticipating the ending that has to come up off the floor! I'm often so absorbed I shut out most other noise as my other goal... the coming up clean... means I don’t intend to end up rolling around pulling up stuff I can't use.

I want the Olympic Champion dive. Or running a 400-dash, breaking the tape first, and not be winded. In that territory…Something Xtra Wild, Pleasure, and Atlóta were pearls to write. Across the field, on the winded side where I hammered the piece together, followed by giving up, stuffing a shredder, and then pulling the draft back out of a shredder that doesn’t do reverse, and beating myself up over the messy ordeal as I finished hammering ‘this thing’ into some semblance of order…was Black Table, Pretty Inside Out, and actually A Piece of Peace!

But drama or no drama, what excites me is sitting back, after it’s all written and published, and catching feelers about which books beat out the other. I really enjoy this internal challenge; surely it wouldn’t be as much fun competing against external factors, even if one of mines prevailed in some fashion. In fact, I’m positive it wouldn’t be. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not so far off in Wonderland that I don’t realize this is a business, where the basic objective of any business is earnings; the more, the better... or so some say. True, that’s the basic goal. It’s just that I’m finding an internal product rivalry to be the sweeter nectar.

With all that, and this, the irony I however refuse to let psyche me out is a bit of wisdom another friend once put on me (which goes against my own wisdom) now taunting me… “The 'one' most likely to succeed will be the 'one' you think the least of,” she told me.

Ummm…I love them all (after the story comes together that being), but so far on each round she’s sssh been right. Still I can’t let this psyche me. The internal rivalry going on is much too great. So don't tell her, it’s on now!