Something fantastic came out of my appearing in my own newspaper for an interview talking about my indie publishing experience. I got an invitation to give another talk.

It turns out the library in the town I grew up in is doing a summer sci-fi series, and one of the librarians saw my interview in the Wausau Daily Herald (see it here) and asked me if I would like to participate. Hmm, let me think… um, yes!

So I’ll be a featured speaker on a Saturday in August, talking about the indie publishing experience. I ordinarily don’t like public speaking, but when it comes to writing, I have no problem doing it. I think when you really, really care about something, it’s different. I can give talks about journalism (my other form of writing) and I can talk about writing and independent publishing.

That doesn’t mean I’m an expert. In fact, that’s generally where I come from. I like to tell wanna-be writers that there’s no such thing as a wanna-be writer. Just write, edit, publish, write some more.

I think people have this myth that there’s some pinacle you need to acheive to publish. There isn’t. To somewhat quote ultramarathon runner Scott Jurek, sometimes you just do things. That sums up independent publishing. You write, you edit it until you’re 80 to 90 percent happy with it, get an edit from someone else (you will miss things), give it one last read, add a cover, and hit publish. Then you write some more.

Why not 100 percent? Any writer will tell you, they are never 100 percent happy with their work. You just never get there. Learning when to let go is an important skill. Because at one point, you have to. It’s hard. You keep thinking, one more pass through, I can make it perfect. And when you’re done, you’ll think the same thing. It needs one more edit.

Nope. Publish it. And keep working.

That’s the kind of thing I like to share with other writers. And that’s what I’m looking forward to when I speak at Marathon County Public Library. In the meantime, check out the other cool stuff the library is doing.