Validation

  The life of an Indie author is not all peaches and cream.  It's not exactly a complete and utter struggle either, but the joggling can be incredibly overwhelming.  Most of us keep a day job, have a business, have kids, a husband, a wife, even a pet.  

   Not everyone understands the convoluted rhythms of an Indie author.  We are all dreamers at heart, otherwise we wouldn't be creating people and settings while complicating the ever-loving crap out of our own lives.  Oh, and let's not talk about that wonderful feeling we get when we log onto our outlets and see a big fat zero under the copies sold label.  

   So why do we do it?

   I can't speak for everyone, but as for me, there's no amount of money that can buy that high I get when someone posts a review on Amazon and gushes about something I wrote.  That validation is what sits me back before the screen after a long day at work, when everyone has gone to bed, when most of the bills are paid, when my dog keeps my side of the bed warm.  It's what I live for.

   And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.  

  To read that tears were shed, that they genuinely care for the characters we created; to read that they absolutely hated the bad guy, enough to push him into a fire; to read that they connected and related to a person with a soul and feelings, who only exists in the pages of what you wrote, that validation is everything.  Everything.

   That is the person I love to write for, and I owe it to that one person to write something even better in order to be worthy of his or her praise.

   Yes, there is that dream of making money by doing something we love so much, and if that comes to pass, great.  But for now, to know that what I wrote is worth reading to someone, is all the validation I may ever need.

   Javier A. Robayo