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Why my book is not published yet and failure led me to do better


The reason I'm not published is because I want to get it right.
When my book is published, I want to know I did the best I could for its success.

When will your book be published? It’s a far cry from the rosy and happy ‘tell me what your book is about.’ The excitement waned into ‘so when is the book finally coming out’ at every encounter, in any venue, on the phone or via Morse code.

The smiles turned from surprised-excited-encouraging to the barely curved lips of you’re-still-working-on-that-book-huh? indulging ones. And God forbid, when like mine, your book turns into a series and you decide to finish book two before publishing the first. Also, may God help you if, again like me, you write book three ahead of two. It’s a miracle someone hasn’t patted me on the head and said things like “oh Jay, you’ll do it someday, I’m sure.”

TRUST AND BELIEVE, no one wants in this world wants this book published more than me. I’m also the one that will have to live with the book for the rest of my life. My reputation is at stake and reviews follow you, even when you can no longer see them.

A few years ago, following a horribye long writing drought, I entered into the fantastic world of fanfiction. When you write fanfiction , you can take established characters and transcend them past the world they were created in. So, I dabbled in paranormal and alternate universes as my first step toward a writing career.

The fanfiction world is an inclusive community of avid readers, who are knowledgeable, serious and passionate about the subjects they stan for. They will also cut you to the quick when you get it wrong.

Unfortunately for me, I learned the hard way. I didn’t research the best practices for writing fanfiction before I put my work out there. I didn’t look into other fanfic authors to see what they did right and wrong. Most dooming of all, I committed the cardinal sin of putting your writing out there, I didn’t have a beta or an editor, someone to tell me what worked and what didn’t.

In my head, it was all in fun, doing something entertaining in a familiar way, creating my own endings when the ones I read or watched failed to satisfy me. But something else, much bigger, was happening.

I was putting myself out there as a writer, even if I didn’t know it. 

The reason I'm not published is because I want to get it right.
When my book is published, I want to know I did the best I could for its success.

Soon, my own liking and enjoyment of the stories weren’t enough. Readers were not reviewing though I can see how many people read it. My first chapters had a lot of hit numbers.

I  wondered why people were not taking to my stories and when I finally decided to get real with myself and ask the questions to someone else, I learned the heartbreaking but life changing truth. My storylines were interesting, but the quality of my writing sucked. MAJORLY.

I was devastated because you know…my writing was so edgy, so stylish, my characters so complex…Except they weren’t.

  • I wasn’t following rules because I didn’t think I needed to. I’m a rebel, HELLO!.
  • Thought my writing was mysterious but eeeehhhhh it was just vague
  • Violated rules of punctuation, grammar, and logical reaction order
  • Used my secondary characters as disposable tools

I had a decision to make, if I wanted to be a published author, Quit or get better?

I chose to get better; quitting was not an option. All my life I’ve known one truth: one day I would write for a living. Really, there was no decision. I needed to get better, so I set up to find myself some help. With the help of a strong beta, who is currently my critique partner, I started to course correct, taking classes, attending workshops and online webinars. Everything was rosy after that…NOT.

The damage was already done.  While I built a fan base of readers, others still remembered my old blunders even after the stories were long removed. They never forgave me. That was a great lesson. Some readers won’t give you a second chance. So, with my book, I want to make sure it’s right, meaning I am happy and comfortable with it, before publishing. And yes, I know it will never be perfect but I want it to have a chance.

This is one of the main reasons I still have not published book one. When people ask, I don’t want to bore them with this long, unsexy story, of me covering all my book bases. So I give a brief and allied version of the truth.

I’m in edits. It will be out soon.