Novel Means New

I did a thing this last year. 

Well, really, this last year and a half. I wrote a novel, a big fat novel, that, according to my sister, is engaging enough to make you want to keep reading at night even when you're off doing water projects and flipping your car upside down on sub-Saharan roads and that, according to my husband, is great if you need something to keep yourself entertained on a six hour flight across America while you're trying to block out the fact that your then-six year old twins are behind you eating all their Christmas candy in one sitting. Naturally, my sister and my husband are experts in the field, so you can trust them explicitly.

Now, the problem with having written a novel is two fold. First, I have to find a literary agent and a publisher so that at some point I can actually fulfill my life-long dream of seeing a book that I wrote on a shelf in a bookstore...and not because I put it there to make myself feel better about life. Second, it turns out that I am really terrible (I mean, really terrible) about talking about my book. I make it sound incredibly boring. And I promise you that it's not. I'm just horrible at selling things. Which is why I never went into retail. And why our RV still hasn't sold.

So I'm over here doing my level best to email literary agents and try to pretend that I'm not a sad and pathetic saleswoman and they do really want to read my book, but one of the things I keep seeing encouraged on all these websites is the building of a platform (that means you!), and my platform at present is pretty small. So, I'm doing another thing. 

I'm actually getting on Instagram. For real this time, not just to look at a book cover from an author I like and then pretend that I was never there for the next four years.

I picked Instagram because a writing group that I follow is hosting a one week writers challenge starting Monday. And I'm telling you about it because I can't do this thing called "building a platform" without people like you (which I've already mentioned). This means that, without you, my chances of getting my book into a bookstore near you are a lot slimmer.

So if you would like to read my book one day, may I ask you to do a couple things? One, keep reading my blog. I can't tell you how encouraging it is when I see that you guys are reading what I am writing (comments are an extra bonus). If it makes it easier for you, sign up for it to come straight to your inbox. If you've already done that and somehow the emails aren't showing up, yell at me, and I will try to fix it. But yell at me nicely. Two, if you haven't followed my writers page on Facebook, I would love it if you would. It makes me look so pretty and popular. That's a movie reference probably only my sisters will get and the rest of you will think I am totally full of myself. Three, if you are an instagrammer, you can find me easily as @marianfrizzell. There is literally one photo on there right now (that I only posted so that I could write this blog), but this will change soon! I promise.

Now, a couple addendums. If you like me but don't like my writing, I feel you, man. Some days I am totally there with you. Do it for the love of the children. You can delete my emails unread, ignore my blogposts entirely, scroll right past whatever I post on instagram--and still feel good about yourself because you are helping support my crazy dream. On the other hand, if you neither like me or my writing, wow, I am so impressed that you read this far! Also, I won't offer to change your mind, but I can sit with you in solidarity as there are days I also neither like myself nor my writing, so: SAME. But my offer to you is to follow me anyway so that one day you can go buy my book at a bookstore (or get it at a library) and read it and laugh hysterically about how bad it is and how ridiculous the publishing industry must be to have ever published it. And then you can still feel good about yourself too. Win win.

In the meantime, I will be over here, continuing to get up at obscenely early hours (and falling asleep mid conversation with the Man around nine pm every night) so that I can do something that makes me feel like myself and that hopefully will bring others joy or give a needed truth  or just a laugh at the right moment. Any of those would be a win in my book. 

On that note, may we keep making small choices together to encourage one another and to make our world (touched by our own small circle of influence) and our year (built moment by moment) a little better for all of us who live in it together.