Beginnings: on taking myself seriously as a writer and artist.

Modern commercial writing advice says to build your brand and audience before submitting your work to agents and publishers.

The logic is sound. If you have loyal followers, you have a sales base. You’re more marketable. Even if you don’t pursue traditional publishing, that fan base will be your direct sales base through your self-publishing efforts. It’s solid marketing advice.

But how does a writer reconcile their unpublished status with this premise?

I have no publishing credentials. I have a handful of “finished” short stories. I have a few novels in the drawer, but none polished past a first draft. And, while I am always working on a project and my end goal is to be a published novelist, I find it difficult to convince myself that building a following for that unfinished writing is fair to the potential fan base.

Maybe this is a self-esteem thing. Maybe it’s fear that I will never amount to the writer and novelist that I promise myself that I will become, and therefore it is easier to not make these promises to the public at large.

But maybe, just maybe, I owe it to myself and my career to make this commitment. It’s time to declare myself to the world. I, Alex Vail Faber, am a writer. I am an artist. And I will be a published novelist.

So here’s to beginnings and journeys.