Dead Magic is officially in the hands of my publisher. (Woo! Happy confetti is getting tossed about my apartment right now!) I’ve also started poking around review sites to see about getting the book out there … and there will probably be Giveaways and all that jazz when it’s time for the release.
But as a special treat for myself for finishing the edits and meeting the deadline, I totally got my hair done. First time getting it professionally highlighted and all that jazz. It was definitely an experience.
Is it morbid that the first thing I thought about when they put me under the dryer thing was that episode of Supernatural where the lady totally got fried under one? (Relax, those machines can’t really do that to you. The Winchester boy’s were hunting a witch at that point.)
Anyway, that was my positive reinforcement for meeting the deadline. Rewards are so very important for writers. Yes, we love good reviews (and by that I mean our hearts flutter) and finishing a book in itself can be a reward, but physical rewards are important too.
Let’s face it, the act of writing is a solitary event. It requires that we agonize over verbs and nouns and fighting between active versus passive voice, and it’s really frigging hard. And most of us never really think what we’ve written is worth the paper to print it out, even if the marketing people insist that we pretend it’s incredible.
So after weeks and months of self-imposed solitary confinement, staring at words until they burn into our retinas, struggling to make a clear statement out of messy plot complications, and fighting tooth and nail to make a believable character arc appear on the page … we writers really do deserve a reward.
It’s all about the positive reinforcement, people!
AJMaguire 