My newest novel, Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin is available now for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, Audio Book and Paperback! HERE
Now that that’s all settled, I promised to blog more three months ago so… here we go.I feel like I’m telling a dirty secret by admitting this: Releasing new books causes me a lot of anxiety. My hands shake, my stomach hurts, I have a hard time sleeping, I wake up feeling like something/someone (creepy?) is sitting on my chest. Symptoms make an appearance about a month before: stress and self-doubt. “Is everyone going to hate it? They’re going to hate it. I need to rewrite the book all over again. Shit, shit, shit.” Then, a little while later, I’m fine.
It’s a vicious cycle that continues until a month after the book is released. I hate it. I really, really do. My goal is just to write as much as I can during this phase so I can get my mind off it.
Unfortunately, I’ve been like this my entire life. I think I’d get sick the day before report cards went out because I always expected to get an F for no reason. (The only F I ever got was in PreCal my junior year. Let’s not talk about how I managed to pass the class.)
I love writing, and I don’t release things that I’m not in love with. Honestly, I really don’t mind if someone doesn’t like my work or liked another one of my books more. Opinions I understand and respect. I watched an interview with a popular director a few months ago that talked about how he suffers severe anxiety when he releases movies, how he still worries–so many movies into his career–about what people will think. Then he said, “Realistically, only 18% of people are going to understand and appreciate what you’re doing. You’re never going to make everyone happy.”
That’s probably something we could all learn to accept: You will never make everyone happy.
Maybe you just need to throw up a few times to really get the notion across, eh? (I don’t throw up, I just feel like I’m going to. Promise.)
Anyway, this was way more therapeutic than I thought it would be.
On one last note, my most recent Weekend Reading Corner rec was Courtney Milan’s “The Duchess War.” The characters were so well written and witty, I loved it.
Have a great day, you guys.
xo
Mariana