Write for the Reader

“I write what I would like to read–what I think other women would like to read. If what I write makes a woman in the Canadian mountains cry and she writes and tells me about it, especially if she says ‘I read it to Tom when he came in from work and he cried too,’ I feel I have succeeded.” —Kathleen Norris, on the publication of her seventy-eighth book

Now that  Ruby Among Us has been out for about five months, I have accumulated a pile of reader mail. Actually, thanks to technology it is a pile of reader “emails” that I have printed out. Either way, I’ve been hearing from readers and they have reminded me of what is really important about writing. A story really is not a story until it has interacted with a reader.

I turned in Rose House last Friday and afterward, all I could think about was whether or not the editors, publisher, agents, and reviewers would like it. It wasn’t until I received an email from my senior editor reminding me to rejoice and celebrate that I finally remembered. I have a few readers waiting to interact with this story. I know I have some because they wrote to me and asked when my next book was coming out.

Writing under a contract is a  special privilege and sometimes a challenge. The story is yet to interact with a reader and it’s easy to let the “business” of writing make one forget about the reader altogether.  When I went back to my pile of reader email, something interesting happened. As I was reading the sincere words in those letters, I remembered that ultimately writing under contract means writing to connect with a reader.

Some of my emails tell how Ruby Among Us reminded readers of grace, others are from readers who connected strongly with Lucy because their own mothers had passed away or were estranged, still others had to put the book down due to the tears they shed, but picked it up later and rejoiced to the last page. Some of the best letters were from people who said, “and so I also bought one for my daughter, sister, and mother because I wanted them to read it too.”

When Ruby Among Us resonates with the heart of just one reader, it means more than a golden review from a top reviewer ever could. I have a stack of golden “email” reviews that might not ever be quoted in magazines, but the readers who sent them to me are more than enough to keep me writing.