So, I’ve been working on the proposal for a successor series to the WebMage books. The funny thing is that somewhere along the line, writing book proposals went from being an awful task to kind of fun.
Because of where I am in my career, I no longer have to have a completed book to synopsize, and it’s much easier to plump a cool idea out into a book outline then it is to condense a novel done into one. That helps…a lot. It also doesn’t hurt that I’ve been working on the screen porch on a lounger surrounded by cats and a beautiful Wisconsin spring. But the most important change is that I’ve done this enough (way more than 20 times) and read enough successful proposals (30-50) that I no longer worry about the mechanics. It’s just another form of the story/play that is what I love most about my job as a novelist. I feel like I am finally becoming truly comfortable in my skin about all of the aspects of being an author.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that I will continue to have a career under this name, because that’s entirely dependent on book sales, and I have very little control on that front beyond writing the best book I can every time, which I would do anyway, just for me. But that’s just how the business works. I guess the point of the post is simply this:
It gets better.
Every one of those writing tasks that seem daunting now, eventually gets easier and less painful. Keep practicing, keep growing, keep sending stuff out, and some day, when you’re not expecting it, the tasks that seemed impossible once might even have become fun.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 5 2009, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)