With a solid commitment to engaging with reading communities online, we built a groundswell of support from hundreds of people we’d never met all across Australia. It began with the successful launch of the first book of my INTREPID series Defender of the Faith in late 2011. My ‘made it moment’ has so far lasted about four years. We’d done all the research, including our own market research on my writing, and one day (after having received an offer from an independent publisher to publish my book) we stepped off the cliff and we’ve never looked back. So, when I finally managed to put the finishing touches on my first novel, my wife Sarah and I decided to take control and self-publish. I had confidence that there was a market for what I was writing and so I focused on that: the reader (what a concept!) Besides, I have an innate disregard for gatekeepers. Like many of us, I’ve been through the rejection phase, but I’m a pretty impatient person so there’s only so much of it that I was prepared to put up with.

So, you dust yourself off, remind yourself about what made you decide to become a writer in the first place and step off the cliff again. The hardest thing, I think, is accepting that not everybody is going to like what you do. Writing is such a deeply personal thing, you are literally sharing yourself, your thoughts, your imagination – committing it all to the page and then laying it bare for all the world to see – and criticize. I think many authors understand and often share the soul destroying frustration of rejection. I hope the following words do as much for you. And I found a new book to try in Defender.

I found solace in his words as I work toward the release of my own third novel. Chris Allen’s Made It Moment, or rather, his perspective on the phenomenon of “moment-ing,” hit both nails for me. Another purpose is to lead readers to great new books. Wow! Have you ever read a Moment where you felt as if the author was writing expressly for you? I hope you have–that’s one of the purposes of this forum, to make us all feel a little less alone in our journeys and struggles as writers.

Fit to be Dead by Nancy G. West