Hello, my name is Alexa Grave, and my superpower is invisibility. No, not like Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman. Hell, if I had a power like that, I'd actually be more visible, if you know what I mean.
Here, I'll use an example. A ton of books are published each day, which of course makes it insanely hard to get enough people to notice your book when you publish it. So you have to jump through hoops - do promos and post ads (this can be akin to flushing money down the toilet, and in my opinion a form of gambling, but that's probably a whole different Mini Mind Splat post). You also hit the social media and try to encourage your friends and family to help a little (it kind of sucks when you have a family that doesn't give a rat's patoot about your writing... again, a topic for another post).
You do all of that, and then... crickets. Yes, you do it the right way like how all the successful writers are recommending, and still crickets. It's like you completely just shouted into the void and wasted your time and money for zero results.
Now I know this isn't the best example because trying to get your books noticed is so damned hard, and many many writers are stuck in this situation. It was just the easiest one for me to talk about.
The thing is, this happens to me all the time. With writing, yes, but other things in life as well. I have good ideas that I want to execute, that I know are good ideas and others have done such things, and then I propose the idea and get maybe one person saying it's a great idea, but said person doesn't then participate in it nor does anyone else (friends and acquaintances alike). Half the time I feel like I've just being paid minimal lip-service, and then I'm instantly forgotten in the next breath.
Speaking of forgotten, that's also happened to me in certain instances. Or people constantly spelling things associated with me wrong, like my name and book titles.
It's like I have an aura of foregetability surrounding me, if not invisibility. Do I smell? Do I scare people? Does everyone secretly hate me but aren't willing to tell me to my face? (Honestly, I'm also usually the one that has to initiate plans with my friends.) All these thoughts fly through my brain when it just seems like I can't get myself to be heard, let alone seen.
OK, now I'm getting a little whiny. Sorry about that - not my intention.
I often hear the advice that you should take a close look at your talents and use those talents to help you in life. What do I do with this invisibility talent? I mean, it would be great if I were a spy, but I'm a writer. How do I leverage invisibility when it comes to writing? The whole point of publication is to get noticed so people read your books! Maybe I just should have been a spy. :p
Honestly, though, if anyone has any suggestions on how to utilize this superpower of mine, I'm all ears.
Though I'm guessing maybe one person will read this blog post the whole way through because even though I've been blogging for years, I've never been able to gain a decent following.
And I'm starting to get whiny again. Time to wrap it up!
What's your superpower?
No comments:
Post a Comment