“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime . . . .” — Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, dissenting Ginzberg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463 (1966)

There are a few things that I have come to terms with.

1. I will never be a professional author, not the kind that fill bookstores and have signings. I don’t have the discipline or the brain for it. The more I turn a hobby into work, the less I actually get done with it.

2. I need to remember that my writing needs to be fun for me. If I accept that I’m not going to be a professional author, then I will be able to write for the only audience that really matters: me. It’ll be nice to have a few fans, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, if it isn’t fun then I’m going to drag my feet which is going to make me feel guilty and ashamed for letting down all those other people, which will just stifle my creativity more.

3. Just because I put up my wares online for free today doesn’t mean that I can’t make money on them tomorrow. Once I have a few stories completed, I can always start up my own website and put a few advertisements on it to try to get a small income that way. I can also self-publish my books and sell them. Conversely, a good number of major names are going the eBook route, including Sandra Brown, Steven King, and others. While this does allow them to reach a larger audience, it also means that there are a great many people out there who’re downloading their books for free. (I should know.) Just because people have read the story doesn’t mean that they won’t go out and buy an actual book.