Kate Constable's Blog

Calling To The Void (and an echo returns)

Writing can be a lonely job. You work at your book, fretting and fiddling, and you launch it out into the world, and it flies away.

Silence.

Is anybody reading it? What do they think? Is anybody out there? Hello?

I know I'm not the only author who googles her own name for some faint hint that someone, somewhere out there in the wild, has reached up and caught my book in their hand.

The very nicest part of being an author is when a reader takes the time and trouble to actually write and tell you that they've enjoyed your books. ("loved," "adored," "LOVED IT!!!!" "my favourite book EVER!!!" is, naturally, even better.) But then you also stumble across weird little acts of appreciation like this...

...which led me to a lovely You Tube book review of the Chanters of Tremaris trilogy, by Kate (no relation). I smiled wryly when she says that no-one she knows has ever read these books. She speculates that they may be really huge in Australia (sigh!).

But the best part was when she says that she liked the hero, Darrow, because he "acts like a MAN." No one has ever said that before. Kate likes it that Darrow doesn't sparkle. He's not sensitive. He can be difficult, and moody, and uncommunicative, even though he clearly cares. Because, let's face it, men can be hard work sometimes.

But they're worth it.