The Question Every Author Dreads

It’s not “Where do you get your ideas?” Though that one ranks exquisitely high on the impossibly painful to answer list.

No, the question I dread the most as an author is “Which book is your favorite?”

Aaaarrghh.

We all know why the questioner wants to know. They think the one I say is my favorite will be extra good. Never mind the one or two that sell better than all the others. I’ve never actually been able to figure out why they do, because in my mind they’re no better or worse than the others. People are funny. No, they’re weird. They like what they want to like and not what you think they should like.

But if I’m honest, there is genuine passion for each character in every story while writing it, and you never stop recognizing it once it’s on the page. You actually get to relive it a little bit each time you reread a story, or when you know someone else is reading it, because just like Christmas is cool once again after you have a kid, so is knowing someone else is reading your story and experiencing it the way you did when you wrote it.

There’s nothing like it.

So which story is my favorite, you want to know?

Which one are you about to read? It’ll be that one, I guarantee it.