Good morning, y’all. My mom likes to start these book birthdays off with issues that will give me mini-heart attacks at 6AM. (She means well and will be spamming all of her friends with my books all day.) “Your pre-orders aren’t being delivered correctly.” Or “people can’t pre-order on iPhones”. With a bit of Amazon consulting, it was sorted by 7AM, but I was almost relieved when Windows told me it had to configure a feature update. (Incidentally, if you have this problem with a pre-order, don’t delete your app and restart your phone over and over. Just delete the book and download it fresh. It will still be in your Kindle library if you delete it from the device.) Since I was helpless due to the Windows gods, I went for a four mile run listening to the catchy, fast songs from Hamilton. It was just the thing for a book birthday.

I get caught up, probably like most artists, in how well a thing is being received. Do I have reviews? Are they good? Did people love my characters? Did I sell enough to keep doing this? In the end, it doesn’t matter. I give my best words and best characters to my readers. I want to give you the same places to crawl into that I have–beautiful worlds with the kinds of people we want to know.

One of my favorite quotes about creating art is advice from Andy Warhol, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” I’ve been taking Mr. Warhol’s advice, and I have over a hundred pages of Iron Spirits done now. Here’s to knocking out the next two hundred.

I hope you find characters and lines in each of my books that sneak their way into the channels of your brain and that my books are a refuge when you need it. Happy reading!