The Passion for Writing

Passion

Dear Reader,

You may not have ever thought about it. I know I didn't. If you're like me at all, you probably picked up books, read them from cover to cover, enjoyed the escape for as long as it lasted, and suffered from a book hangover when it ended as well as suspense for the next volume in the series or the next title from a favorite author. Analyzing the amount of intense mental labor, blood, sweat, tears, and anxiety which goes into creating a book probably never occurred to you, unless you too write.

For me as a discovery writer, writing isn't a habit or just a hobby. Truthfully, it's a passion project so intense it borders on an obsession. When the scene is flowing, I don't want to stop writing. Never mind that it's three o'clock in the morning, I have to be at work in four and a half hours, and I haven't been to sleep yet. Perhaps borders on should be replaced with is an all-consuming. Yeah, that might be more like it. I'll leave it to you to decide.

I suppose this mental illness could have been far worse or maybe even an addiction to drugs and alcohol. In a seriously surreal way, the passion for writing mimics the signs of an addiction. The need to write takes over aspects of your life that it shouldn't and interferes with accomplishing things in a manner that shouldn't be allowed.

The high when the scene is that good when you finish writing is simply awesome. It's the high the writer chases every time they sit down to write much the way an addict chases the high from the next fix.

Don't even get me started on the surreal effect you get as the author when you read your work and think the writer is pretty damn good only to realize you'd become immersed in the story you wrote. That's beyond explanation.

surreal

It's not to say I don't suffer from imposter syndrome or I think my stories are in any way superior to those of other authors. I often wonder if my stories are any good or if it's only me who likes them. I'm also quite positive my stories aren't as amazing as some of my favorite authors. None of that stops the high though.

In a way, it's much like a rollercoaster with intense highs and lows. When the ride ends, I jump out of the car all sore and get in line with my all-day park pass to ride it again. Each time the rollercoaster stops, no matter how crazy the ride was, I want to share it with people. So every time I finish a story, I publish it.

When I first started writing, I chased the story with the same zeal I do with everything I'm keenly interested in. Like everything else I dreamed I wanted in my life, I chased it to catch it. It was a dream, and I intended to live it. I started writing a story. I wrote a lot. I mean over 40,000 words. That's the length of a novel. I hated it!

It was the absolute worst garbage I’d ever read. No one would want to read that! It wasn't imposter syndrome. The story sucked. That was all there was to it. I erased everything except the first scene. Delete is an awesome weapon… err tool, whatever.

I started over, but not entirely from scratch and not right away. I stopped writing. I was terrible at it, even though I’d once dreamed of being a writer. Research and essay writing or even technical writing isn’t the same thing as telling a story and that was all I had done for years.

To write fiction is to write pleasure and entertainment. It's to tell a story so compelling the real world is left in favor of the one created by the mind if only for the moment. I far too often still fall into the trap of informative writing. I want to show rather than tell, but it isn't easy and I digress.

school hallway

Back when I was in high school (a long time ago), when I believed I’d live forever and I was invincible. I could do whatever I wanted to do; I knew I could write. The entertaining kind of writing, the storytelling kind of writing, not just the business kind. That was before adult life, a soul-sucking career, two kids, etc…

You don’t want to hear that garbage. Back to the real story. So I gave up, left my sad little first scene in my docs files for a few months, and went back to my first love, reading. Because that's ultimately where almost every author's first desire to tell the story comes from. They fall in love with storytelling itself and then feel the driving need to create their own. I began reading to learn the craft.

After a few months, I started to write again.

Shameless Self Promotion

A Pack Forms by Ophelia Kee

In case you were wondering whatever happened to that first scene, I've included the link. That first scene is Chapter 1 in A Pack Forms. It's not exactly the same as it was. Nothing that has been edited ever is. I kept it though and eventually published it because I had finally told a good story and the rollercoaster came to a stop.

A Pack Forms Volume 1 in the Draoithe Saga

A modern-day knight in shining armor is a man with a secret. He’s an immortal direwolf shifter, a man who can change at will into a lethally dangerous canine who holds the ability to step into the stillness and achieve any goal.

When he finds himself without a career after retiring disabled from his last mission in the military, he has to rethink the direction of his life. He needs to reinvent himself before anyone realizes that he stopped aging at the age of thirty-five. He’s learned just enough to make his existence a bit dangerous.

The sexy high school teacher neighbor he’s been near-stalking has her own secrets. She feels like everything and claiming her is all he can focus on. But she won’t be easy to catch.

He’s determined to win her as his own until a shadowy evil attacks her and reveals a situation that forces him to be the man of action that he’s always been. To keep the woman he loves safe, he must become the alpha pack leader he was born to be.

Steamy Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy 18+ HEA! NC! Fated Mates

***Warning: Adult Themes, Fantasy Violence, and/or Explicit Sexual Situations. Intended for a Mature Audience.

Marketing

ecommerce

You may have noticed that most of the links in my blog posts and the Newsletter lead to OpheliaKee.com or follow a circuitous route through social media back to my website. While my books are also available on other platforms, I prefer to sell directly from my store.

All of those platforms cost me a larger percentage of my royalties than what I pay for my Payhip site. So while the price is the same on Amazon as it is on Apple Books, I make less money from each sale, even if my readers all pay the same price. Some platforms require me to meet a minimum sales point before funds will be released, forcing me to wait a long time to ever get the money I earned.

Selling my books direct is truthfully the best route. The profit margin is over 20% higher, and the wait time for funds is cut from months to a few business days. I can offer exclusives, coupons, and freebies along with a blog, serial shorts, and videos.

Still, it's a harder task to accomplish direct sales because people like their preferred platform. Driving traffic to my store is harder than picking up "foot traffic" on other stores and some don't trust small internet businesses.

To boost the bottom line, I'm slowly focusing most of my promotional efforts on my store. My funds are limited, so my reach is limited. Focusing my efforts on my store means I'm promoting myself rather than promoting other much larger businesses. I believe in myself and my stories. I can't easily say other platforms share that same belief in me.

Ways to help an author

Having said all that, I must encourage my readers to buy directly from authors whenever they can. It helps to ensure the money you paid for a book transfers more completely to the author you're supporting when you purchased the entertainment package they sold.

I need to get busy with my housework. The day job and my writing make my home a bit disheveled. As always when you read, please be kind and leave your reviews. Readers are awesome and honest reviews are the best way to let an author know you enjoyed the rollercoaster ride too.

Be Careful!

Happy Reading,

Ophelia Kee

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