I feel invigorated, simply because I'm being read.
I have three beta-readers now, and I'm getting constructive feedback that's helping me make good substantive changes to Voyageurs. And, occasionally, expressing what they like about the book.
You, the reader, have read excerpts from this and other books here online, but it's different. I don't know if any of you are real or just bots. I assume some of you are real, or else I wouldn't be talking to you right now. But its murky, and since I know only a few of my readers, and I know nothing about whether you're enjoying what you read, it hasn't been like being read.
As a result, I am becoming increasingly convinced that writers don't write just for themselves.
If they did, there would be no self-publishing. There would be no Wattpad. There would be no FanFiction.net. There wouldn't be a whole industry based on improving writers' skills if writers didn't want to be read.
There would be no hashtags on Instagram like #writersofig. No writing-related memes on Facebook that the writers (usually the unpublished ones) reblog. There would be no shirts like the one in my closet that says "You're coming dangerously close to being killed off in my next novel".
There's enough of us who want to be read that there's a multi-million dollar industry who wants to make money off us.
Therefore, I will quit apologizing for wanting to be read, and for agonizing over rejections. I write for myself, but I want to be read, and I am willing to craft my message accordingly, even if I won't change my themes or characters.
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I believe that everyone here comes with good intent. If you come to spoil my assumptions by verbal abuse, excessive profanity, spam or other abuses I had not considered, I reserve the right to delete your notes or delete your participation. I am the arbiter of what violates good intent.