my husband my muse

My husband, my muse.

So I did it. I booked my editor and set my tentative self publish date for mid-April 2018.

I’m so excited and nervous I may vomit.

sheldon breathing into paper bag

I started writing this novel in 2014. It was a long, slow process. At that time I was just writing for myself and never had any intention to publish. It all started when my husband was on military orders and he sent me a short story about friends with benefits meeting in a bar for drinks. It was a fun hobby between him and I so I kept at it.

Yes, Scott and Tori’s personalities in the beginning were LOOSELY based on him and I. They quickly developed into their own people that resembled us less and less. Him and I had so much fun playing God with these fantasy characters.

With his help over the course of two years I breathed LIFE into these characters.

It was “finished” and put away and I moved onto the second book in the series in 2016.

In 2016 I wrote four sequels that year. I don’t know what got into me but the words kept spewing out. At that point I’d spent so much time pouring into my writing it seemed insane to NOT share it with the world.

I kinda figured, ok mabye I’ll just make a blog about Scott and Tori. Like a literary soap opera and post weekly shorts about them.

My husband looked at me one day after reading it and said. “You NEED to publish this. Not on a blog, not on a message board. You need to make this a real book. You have something special here.”

God this man. He pushes me far past my comfort zone. He was also the one that encouraged me to go back to school and earn my design degree after years of life being sucked out of me in the customer service industry. This turned out well, so MAYBE just MAYBE this author thing could work.

So I began toying with the idea of finding an agent or legitimately self-publishing my series.

I tried a few queries but I always came back around to the self-publish route. I’m a graphic designer so the artist in me had a clear vision for what I wanted each cover and each promo graphic to look like. I wanted control of all this. Self-publishing was my best route to keep my creative control.

So, I made a website, a logo. I started getting plugged into the indie author community. I found CP’s that I had faith in. I got REALLY serious about this. I started calling myself an author, (which seemed SO strange).

I quickly realized that this was more than just throwing a word doc on Amazon and crossing my fingers. This was going to be a big endeavor.

If one thing has bludgeoned me over the head again and again as I travel down this road to self-publish it’s that I MUST hire an editor.  Editing and cover design are the two things that every indie author will tell you not to go cheap on. The cover design I KNEW I could do. The editing-not so much.

Last week my husband gave me the green light to hire my editor.

I won’t lie. It’s very difficult to drop this kind of money on something that could be a total crapshoot. Right now is not the most opportune time to be spending this kind of dough, but I’ve sat on this story for far too long. It’s time.

As I sat in my own hell of personal fear and panic this weekend I texted my husband and vomited out all my fears to him.

He writes back to me (he’s away this weekend for military leave) and says:

“I’m willing to bet on you. Even when we are broke. I believe in you.”

lady swooning and falling on the floor
OMG SWOON. God damn if he isn’t the stuff that romance novels are made of. (Fair warning babe; I’m totally going to use that line somewhere someday in one of my books). OH my husband, my muse. I love him.
Here is a quick transcript of the remainder of our conversation:

HIM: I got a hotel room. Didn’t want to sleep on the cot.

ME: After you saying  what you just said you can buy the whole damn hotel.

HIM: Really?

ME: I’m moved to tears. I’m crying.

HIM: Well, let me mess it all up by trying to use the good I earned to get laid. 😉

ME: Oh you earned a good fucking with that line.

HIM:

HIM: If I’m the stuff of Romance Novels, then you are the fantasy Badass-Fantasy-PornStar-DonnaReed that every guy dreams of. Not to mention that in all of life’s hardest battles, you are the best wingman I could ever ask to watch my back. Truly captivating and fierce.

Also, you have a great booty

AND this friends, is why my husband HAS and ALWAYS WILL BE my muse.

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