In This Together

Now there are a lot of things I’d like to think of as us all in together, the world definitely needs more empathy and togetherness. But for this, right now, it’s my husband and I in this together. This thing called life, but more specifically in the business of books and authorship.

The world of an author has much more nuance than you’d think, at least how I thought about it before we were on this wild crazy ride together. Seth has never been alone, per se, in his journey as an author, but perceived reality and felt reality can be very different things.

While I’ve been able to support him with cover and interior designs alongside the sheer amount of love and belief I have in him I didn’t feel like I could help in every area needed. I wanted to do more, to help more, but there was a lot of separate personal growth we both needed to do first.

So, now we are actively working towards a place of mutual support, knowing how to ask, and better how to support one another. We are in this business of authorship together. I may not write any of the books, nor do I want to take that credit, but it is still truly a joint effort.

Recently we started reading a book on book marketing together, and just having that conversation that he doesn’t have to do that alone, and that I can actually help, was huge. Somehow we’d gotten into a place where it was incorrectly assumed that he must go it alone; I couldn’t/didn’t know how to help.

The craziest part to me now is that it took this long to untangle, but we’ve had some very interesting and sometimes long journeys, both mutually and separately, that had to fall in place to even think about having this conversation.

And thus, I am happy to be moving forward together. We may still not have the foggiest about where to go from here, but it’s a lot less scary having someone along for the adventure.

What adventures are you a part of with your people? Do you want to be a part of something with your people?

PS. My current art project is going to be a longer term one, with multiple detailed parts...a lot more than I’ve really ever done. And why, you ask, does this have anything to do with Seth’s books? Well, I’m creating some art to go alongside them, maybe even as cover art, and I’m really excited to pursue this! But since I’m not ready to share everything just yet, here is a drawing I did a while back of my favorite character, Allie, from the current Future’s Birth series.