I can't see through this fog of denial ...

Or maybe it isn't denial. I don't know. Maybe it's just a realistic point of view on the subject.

I started writing in September 2008. It was a scarey journey, a fun journey, an educational journey. By September of 2009 I was living the blogger's life (at least in a small way.) I was querying a book, blogging everyday, tweeting with agents and authors alike. People knew who I was. Agents knew who I was.

Yet, I couldn't get a bite on my books if my life depended on it. And I'm serious, my books were that bad!

Here I am, almost two years later and I'm not #3 on the Kindle's Free Children's eBook Best Seller List. I've sold (given away?) over 17,000 books in the past five days. I should be happy about this. I mean it's a good thing ... right?

Why don't I feel like it's that big of a deal?

All the people who were my friends on and off line, the people who helped me get to where I am at today, the people who encouraged me to keep going (sans my sisters and couple awesome crit partners), none of them are celebrating with me. I've tweeted it, facebooked it, blogged about it, SUPER over announced it (I was slightly excited about it yesterday) and maybe one or two of the writers/agents/other people I associated with in the beginning said a word something about it.

Somehow, I've interpreted this (as ridiculous as it may sound) to mean that this accomplishment is not indeed a big deal. If it was, wouldn't I be congratulated by people other than my family and super close friends? (I love you family and close friends!!! These thoughts are not by any means directed toward you.)

But then I think, WOW, maybe those relationships I formed with other writers/agents/etc. were really just superficial. That they did not indeed care about me or my career, while on on the other hand still regularly check to see the progress they've made. And really, this is not about any one individual. It is actually about the internet/blogging world in general. Granted I wouldn't even know two of the most awesome people I know had the internet/blogging world not existed, I still feel like 2 years of my life was wasted trying to become something I could have without all that effort.

(Good thing the husband doesn't read this ... so not in the mood for an, "I told you so!")

Anyways. I know I should be happy, but for some reason I have a feeling that making a big deal of this is really making a big deal of nothing at all. It's not like I've made any money. Every one of those books was Free. It hasn't driven anyone to by the paper copies. Hasn't resulted in tons of reviews and the reviews I have gotten weren't all that wonderful. They weren't horrible, but they were embarrassing.

I rushed so much to just "get the book out there" that I didn't think it would be a problem to wait and update the one version. It wasn't the one I was concerned about anyway. 12,000 copies later and some really nasty reviews. yeah, i was a big deal.

I'm just so negative today ....