Remembering why we write...

I've just had the most lovely text... okay, it's from a friend (obviously; she has my phone number!), but a friend's appreciation of your book is every bit as wonderful as a stranger's :)

It said: "My God Terry, I finished The House of York last night, I've been beside myself all weekend, I couldn't put it down.  It was absolutely brilliant.  By far the best book I've read in ages. I absolutely loved it."

I may not be an Amazon top seller, but I had two lovely new reviews for this book today, as well, neither of which were expected.  It made me think about why I write, in the first place (yes, I know it's the creative urge you can't explain, but aside from that...)

There is so much emphasis on marketing and sales, everywhere, that sometimes it's easy to feel like a failure if you're not selling thousands a week and doing podcasts and video interviews and getting paperbacks into independent bookshops and appearing at literature festivals, etc, etc (I know I do!), but the best thing of all is simply when someone chooses to read what you've written and really, really loves it.  I was also pleased to see that all five of my oldest books sold today; out there, somewhere, those people chose one of mine, out of all the millions available.  Not thousands of people, but that's okay.  Perhaps they'd read others and had returned for more!  Before Amazon Kindle no-one except my friends and family ever read my novels ~ being able to get one's stuff in front of any small section of the reading public, at all, is wonderful.  Full stop :)

January 4th is the best day of the year, so far!!!