Life Update/Indie Blues (#3?)

I am official done with grad school – balloons, bio-degradable confetti, and cake all around! Whoo!

I’m getting around to reading more, which it’s fantastic – I’ve already done two of those reviews that I’ve been sluggish with. I also (in a weird spat of motivation and creativity) revised Devil’s Blood 3 (now in draft 4) and wrote draft 0 of Devil’s Blood 5; accomplishment has been booming this weekend.

Speaking of reading more, I picked up Sarah Maas’s Throne of Glass. The description sounded great and somewhat along the lines of Devil’s Blood. Then I read on the inside cover that she first published it on Fiction Press at the ripe age of 16. Because it was hugely popular, she revised and revised and it became her debut novel.

Jealous? You bet.

When I read that, I almost didn’t want to read it anymore. Is that stupid? Probably. Maas landed the dream gig – the popularity that all indie writers crave. She made it. Of course I’m jealous, but after a twelve hour pause (including a nap), I decided not to let that steer me away from her work. I should read it and find out what about it made it so popular. Obviously, it’s a good story or it wouldn’t be so, right?

I think there’s an epidemic of jealous indie writers who think that their novel should be the next big hit, and when it’s not, they’re mad at those who are. We shouldn’t be that way. We should take that jealously and turn it into a fire to heat our creativity. We should be reading those popular books to see what makes them so popular. We should be happy for those among us who make it.

I haven’t started Throne of Glass yet (as of the writing of this post) and I’m looking forward to reviewing it.

*Since this post was written, I have not only read Throne of Glass, but every book available in the series. It’s amazing.