Last year, I nearly decided not to write the sequel to my debut novel, Find the Wind’s Eye. Sometimes, I half-joke with friends and colleagues that, had I known how hard it would be to write and publish a historical novel, I never would have started. The second has been even harder than the first.

It has been harder simply because I wanted Hear the Wind’s Voice, the sequel to Find the Wind’s Eye, to be better than the first. I think maybe I’ve achieved that goal at last. But it was harder also because I’ve since learned just how difficult it is as an independent author to build an audience and encourage readers to take an interest in one, let alone two novels launched in a steady stream of books, running swiftly down to a vast, unfathomable, and uncharted sea. 

So, I came very close to giving up. It has been four years since my first novel was published. Last month, I published the second. And now, I am working on the third.

Why? I’ve asked myself that question many times. Why, indeed. I see and hear many others among the writing community, struggling as I am, trying to come to terms with that very important question, which any author must answer. Many will boldly claim that they write merely for the enjoyment of it and would continue even if nobody ever cared to read a word they wrote. I find that answer very dissatisfying. 

Writing, like love, at its essence is an act of communication between and among human beings. If someone should say he loves the world but never seeks to go out into it or cares to interact with other human beings, we would be right to question the sincerity, not to mention the sanity, of the lover. Likewise, at least it seems to me, with a writer who does not care if anyone should ever read or react to his writings. Such a statement seems, if nothing else, insincere.

I care that others read and appreciate what I write. And I would not write anything, just as I would not speak a word, if I did not care to be read or heard. I think I still have something important to communicate, even as I near my seventieth birthday in a world that no longer values age or the wisdom that comes with it. 

So I venture out with the spirit of youth, paying little mind to any hardship come what may, and simply let go. And I hope against hope that what I send out into that swift-running stream will stay afloat long enough for someone excitedly to discover it drifting by, who will reach out in delight and retrieve it to enjoy wholly as their own.