Those Moments That Make An Author Smile.

This one caught me by surprise, and I hope the lady in question doesn't mind me mentioning it.

I love the time any reader takes to write a review and rate. Be it negative or positive reviews, readers put their hearts and souls into how they feel over what they've read, and you can see the passion come through (at times, the gifs still kill me on the likes of Goodreads).

As a debut author, there's an author code that I picked up along the way (thank God for Absolute Write Water Cooler). It's the simple guideline that states an author lets the reviewer, review, and the reader, read (basically: don't be the idiot author who looks over a reader's shoulder whilst they're reading, and certainly don't step in on any review and then review the reviewer). In a way, it keeps the author distant from the reader, sometimes a little too distant in my eyes, but as a reader -- I know how I get when I have someone looking over my shoulder when I'm reading. So I keep to the guidelines on my work: write it, publish it, let it go and just let people read. I don't really get to communicate much with readers regard my work, unless they speak to me directly, or do something away from reviewing, where I can get away with doing a little fistpump in the air and sneak in a quick "Oh yeah, like that, baby."

So when those moments come, the ones away from reviewing, it's nice to grab on to them for a while. This week, it was a simple photo:

 

Seeing my work sitting there on someone else's table (the lovely Vishous's), making the facts and figures come to life... hell, I swore (okay, something a lot stronger than that, lol) then I just grinned. To see it there, it knocked me sideways.

So this is just a post to say a thank you back, to this lady and to everyone else who has managed to knock me sideways: the reviews (positive or negative), the lovely people who take time out to speak to me on here, or on Goodreads, and to the those who just have Don't on their shelves. It's been a tense few months, it will always be a tense few months where writing's concerned, so moments like this break the tension and allow that humbled smile to creep through.

And it makes the writing worthwhile.

Photo taken from: Goodreads