So, I was sitting at the laptop (duh), and looking through some of the books I have written over the years. I started writing back in '98. I had all of these stories in my head that I just had to get out. It's like I focused on one storyline over and over, and if I didn't put it down it would slowly drive me crazy. I found one of those books that listed publishers in them. Back then you sent a query in with a sample of your work and then waited for them to get back to you whether or not they thought you were worthy enough for them to look at your entire work. I received a letter back from the publisher asking me how I could write something so vile and believe that it would be published. The publisher book I had been looking at, I'd gotten from a second-hand book store, and the publisher had since changed to publishing only Christian romance. I do not write Christian romance. The thing is, I never sent any of them in again. I suppose that one letter hit me with so much self-doubt I just didn't try again. I would write them, and then...Nothing. I would just set it aside into a file, and go on to the next story banging away in my brain.
But after I sent the first one in, and miraculously it was published, I started to think, "Hey, maybe I should send something else in?" Maybe I could get something else published, and then something else, and another, and another, and... And it happened! I had another one published! Maybe I'm onto something here.
But I had all of these other stories in my head. I wanted to get some of my older stuff published but, ideas keep flooding my head.Then I go back and look at the stuff I wrote sixteen years ago, and I'm not satisfied with any of it. I was in a different place back then. I was a different person. So what to do? Should I erase those files? Gulp! No!
So, now I'm in the process of revising all of those books. And there are a lot of them. Around a dozen or so before technology starts to pick up with cell phones being used on the reg', and the invention of the tablet (OMG, I just said invention), and laptops instead of desktops all of the time. And I sit thinking about what if? What if I hadn't been such a wuss, back in the day and had sent something else in to another publisher? It's regret. I could spit it out and just get on with it, or I could sit choking on it. It's that dilemma after you've purchased the elliptical. You can look at it every once in a while and just dust it on Saturdays, or you can get on the damn thing!
So, I only sat thinking about this for a few. I could wallow in regret, thinking about what if, what, if what if? Or, I could just let it go ( and I will not sing that song either), and get on with what I love to do. I love to write.
