Weekend Recap:
This weekend, my niece came over to visit while her mama produced her a baby brother. Mother and baby are doing really well, and my little niece goes back to her parents tonight.
I also went to a Skillet concert with a bestie and had a helluva good time. Saint Asonia and Theory of a Deadman opened, and they were both excellent! Somehow, I knew their music without actually knowing who they were. Don’t know when or where I was exposed to them, but I was singing along with the rest of the GA floor peeps.
Also, for the first time in my very long concert-going career, the band had to stop the music, turn on the houselights, and send security over the barrier to break up a fight. I’ve been to every kind of music concert imaginable — hard rock, heavy metal, death metal, drunken Irish swag bands, boy bands — but it was Skillet that had a fight break out. Wouldn’t have guessed that one. But they handled it like the pros that they are, and after everything and everyone was taken care of, they started back up, and rocked on to the end of the night.
On to the meat of it — or in my world, the “meat” of it. The MorningStar version, anyway. ::laugh::
What would I do with my life if my books suddenly went nuclear?
You’d think I would have thought of this, and dreamt of this, but I’m a bit of a pessimistic optimist, so because I assume everyone will reject my queries, I have not. The biggest I’ve dreamt is getting over 100 sales… that’s as big as I’ve let myself imagine so far. And with the money I’d make from that, I’d take my husband out for a nice dinner, and might still have to pay a little out of pocket. ::laugh::
So what would I actually do if I hit J. K. Rowling or Stephen King levels of success…?
In my deepest fantasies, I would:
- Move somewhere far away from people. Maybe buy my own mountain or island, or something like that. And on that private land, I would build a humble home, with the most ridiculous library you’d ever see. We’re talking Beauty and the Beast levels, that you can only get to through a secret entrance which would probably also be a book. Very Indiana Jones.
- Have a small farm on said private land. More chickens, some goats, a few horses and cows — but the really cute, hairy cows, probably — and a whole herd of alpacas with one llama to stand guard. My writing would just fund my animal addiction.
- Work with Netflix to turn my stories into a series, because one movie per book just wouldn’t be enough to do it justice. And I would be a really hands-on author/director person. It would be amazing.
- Be adorably quirky in my failed interviews, because I am not good at thinking on the spot, and I am especially not good and meeting famous people. Hopefully it would all be silly enough to be endearing, and eventually I would get better. Probably… I would hope…
But in reality, I would:
- Not quit my job, because I do really enjoy what I’m doing, and the company I work for. I’d have to actually come up with a routine that involved writing everyday, but I wouldn’t wander away from my coworkers and friends.
- Pay off my house, but probably not move. Or if I did move, it wouldn’t be far because I wouldn’t be leaving my job. And I like going into the office everyday, so I don’t want to go too far away from it. But there’s lots of hills and mountains nearby, maybe I could just get on the other side of one of those…
- Be an awkward interview. I like to think I could play it cool, but I can’t. Not really. I’ve had enough situations to know that I would be an interesting, memorable experience. The best I could hope for would be to not completely put my foot in my mouth.
- Indulge in far too many shoes. If I’m staying in my house, then I’m going to fill it with shoes. I would do the renovations I’ve been thinking about, and I would splurge on sky high heels and awesome boots.
I have no real grand designs for my writing. I genuinely just want people to read the stories of these characters that have become so real to me. If that led to more money to spend on shoes and chicks, that’d be great. But I just want people to live in the worlds I’ve created, and maybe want to live there with my characters. That’s when I’ll know I’ve made it, is when someone else writes themself into my story. That’s what I want.
