My Therapist Will Never Expect This

If you've read this blog before, you know that I like to joke about all writers being crazy, and I'm no different. So, this week, I was having my craziness doctored for a little bit, my head shrunk, etc. and my counselor advised me that I need to do two things.

1) Take your damn time.

Yeah, I do expect things to happen in a timeframe that I expect rather than a timeframe that rational, normal human being would expect. In this instance, we were discussing marketing efforts and how I had decided to give up on one particular avenue because it had not produced any results. I can't really unring that bell at the moment, but I do need to learn the fine art of patience. Patience is not the worst quality to have in an author trying to sell books. Unfortunately, one of the reasons I have so many books to sell is because I'm impatient- I want to find out where my books are going, what's going to happen to my characters, and how it's all going to end- and I drive myself to get to the end. Impatience is why I can write 5-10 pages per day and knock out 4-5 100,000 word books per year.

2) Be more assertive.

I would rather ask a stranger online to read and review a book than to ask a friend. Granted, I don't have an ample supply of the latter running around, but the point stands. I have never insisted that any friends or family read any of my books or just put a copy in their hands and stared at them until they started reading. Of course, we come back to being less assertive is what makes me a writer. I'd rather write than talk, and so many of my issues and conflicts get taken care of on the page rather than in reality.

I am considering bringing my counselor a book, putting it in his hands, and staring at him until he reads it. I think that would surprise him.