"Can I Read Your Book?"

We all know how it goes. You mention you've written a novel, and the person you're talking to goes, "Wait, you wrote a book?"

"Yes," you say, feeling a little self-conscious now.

"Can I read it?"

Usually at this point, you might mumble something about how it's not quite done yet, or abruptly change the subject. But you gotta admit, there's something pretty cool about someone wanting to read what you've written.

In the big, heartless world of writing and publishing, the hardest thing to swallow is that most people just don't care about your story. You wrote a book? Cool. So have thousands of other people. Writers walk a tightrope between being realistic about just how small a fish in the pond we are, and maintaining the core belief that we really do have something cool and different to say.

But out in the world at large, where most people haven't written a book, being a writer is super duper cool. Even if you're unpublished.

So today, I challenge you to recognize just how cool you are.

Someone wants to read your book.