I never thought starting my second novel would be so difficult. It’s frustrating. I’m overwhelmed. Confused. Uncertain. Aaaahhhh (that’s me screaming).
So my first novel has been around for almost two months (okay, not too long) and I’m excited about it. I’ve sold waaayyy more than I did last month (that’s when I announced my creation to the world) and that makes me happy. The reviews make me happy…the good and the not so good. I am thankful for them. Good reviews makes my heart smile, makes me feel like “Hey, you really are a writer.” It’s exciting to know that someone actually took hours, days, or even weeks out of their precious life to read my work…and enjoyed it. I like entertaining my readers. I think that’s what stories are all about, escaping your life and peeking into and hopefully becoming engrossed in someone else’s. Some readers have become engrossed in my story while other readers said to themselves, “uh, I’ll pass.” I thank them for taking a peek anyway. When I received my first “not so good” review, I was crushed and said to myself “Damn, I suck. My life is over, I’m not a writer.” Okay, no I didn’t, but that’s definitely how I felt. The few “not so good reviews” stuck out more to me than the numerous “good reviews.” In the end, it’s all in how you look at criticism. You can bury your head or you can rise to the challenge. In the end I have nothing to prove, but I do like to improve, so keep all the reviews coming. 
I want to give a round of applause to every writer, artist, singer, rapper, chef, graphic designer, painter, dancer, poet, designer, actor/actress, hairstylist, etc. for I have learned how much courage it takes to put your creation on display for the world to dissect and rip apart. I find myself much more in tune with things I took for granted before. For example, at my gig (I still have bills to pay while working on my dream of doing nothing but writing and traveling the world) there’s a chef that comes in and whip up meals for lunch. Even from where I sit, I can hear him whistling to himself as he cut up carrots and broccoli for his broccoli of cream soup. One day I walked into the kitchen for a glass of ice water and again he was whistling to himself as he prepared salads for lunch. As I filled my glass with water and ice I glanced over at him. He was too engrossed in his work to notice me staring. In his mind it was just him and the food he was preparing in the room. That’s passion. He enjoyed dressing up his salads. He didn’t just throw salad fixings together and sell them. He took his time and with his passion turned something as simple as a salad to art. It was his art-form. I smiled. I was inspired. Suddenly a coworker walked in and asked “Chef, what’s for lunch?” He could’ve simply responded, “salad.” But to him it wasn’t just a salad. He went on to list everything that was in the salad, from lettuce, to carrots, to chicken breast, to pineapples and so forth. It sounded delicious and looked delicious. After taking a peek, the coworker responded, “how much?” the chef said, “Seven bucks, soup is available as well.” The coworker responded, “Seven bucks? For that? It shouldn’t be no more than five dollars. It’s just a salad.”
I thought the salad was good by the way and a nice amount for the cost. Some disagreed and hated that they wasted their seven bucks. And even now, even if he’s only selling six seven dollar salads, he still craftily whips it together, whistling and humming to himself all the while. I don’t know what my purpose for telling you that story was, but I knew what it felt like to be him.
