IWSG: Blazing a New Trail and Meeting a New Friend!

It’s the first Wednesday of the month.

Time for Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

This last month has been a mixed bag for me.  Some ups.  Some downs.  It all levels out in the end.  At least, I hope it will.  My worst bit of news is something I can’t really share, not without possibly hurting those who’ve been good to me thus far, even if I now find myself in a big, dark, black hole of insecurity. 

What I can share is that I sold the audio rights to my novel, The Mistaken, to Cherry Hill Publishing.  Just look, The Mistaken has been added to their website's homepage as “In Development”. 

Pretty cool, right?  Now, I’ve never listened to an audio book before.  But then again, I’d never read an ebook before I was published either. 

Anyway, before signing, I found out a few interesting facts about CHP.  In the past, their catalog has consisted primarily of public domain titles—think Moby Dick, War of the Worlds and Pride and Prejudice.  Because of this, they have 100% coverage of the US public library market.  That’s huge!  100%! 

Now, CHP is venturing into the world of private titles, such as my own.  Besides physical forms (CD), they distribute electronically via Audible and iTunes, where most people purchase from these days.  Best of all, out of the blue, this publisher came to me, instead of me querying them.  That was very gratifying, let me tell you, and definitely helped relieve some of my insecurity.

So now, in 7 or 8 months, barring any problems, I should have an audiobook version available of The Mistaken!  That’s very exciting to me and helps make up for the rather devastating news I received a couple weeks ago.  Like I said, it all kind of levels out.

In addition to that good news, I got to meet one of my online bloggy buddies & Facebook friends.  None other than the vivacious Tammy Theriault!  We’d been emailing and FB messaging and texting a lot lately, and have grown to be good friends, though only virtually, as in the Internet, even though we only live about an hour or so apart, something I only recently discovered.

Well, on Saturday, I noticed Tammy had posted a picture of a Bellevue, WA landmark on her Facebook page, so I suspected she was very near my home.  I commented on her photo, and the next thing I knew, like an hour later, we were having lunch together at Outback! 

And you know what, we clicked.  Just like that.  Very natural.  Very easy.  Very comfortable.  I had a blast!  My only regret was that she had to run home after only 90 minutes—long drive and all.  But I’m thrilled to have met in person yet another “virtual” friend, and another writer, not to mention one so genuinely sweet and terribly funny!

That’s just the kind of fuel I need to get me through those insecure days.

Happy June, you guys!