When I wrote First, I Love You, I didn’t have an audience in mind – didn’t even think I’d show it to anyone outside of my family and close friends. It was a liberating experience. A cathartic experience. I had a story in my soul and I told it, with no expectation or desire to please anyone but myself.

I’m finding I like writing best when I am in that zone. The minute I fall into that trap of wondering if my readers are happy enough, or trying to guess what the market “wants”, it feels like an obligation, flirting at the edges of obsession. Fellow writers will know what I mean – endlessly checking stats at Amazon, unable to read a book without examining its prose in comparison to your own, trying to correlate royalties to promotional activities, feeling pressured to join organizations… And then one day it…