Worth It

Writers are not just people who sit down and write.  They hazard themselves.  Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. ~E.L. Doctorow

As I contemplate getting back into our regular schedules after the holidays, after welcome distractions of family and entertainment and shopping and food, of traditions and meaning and blessings, I feel that little tremor of anticipation regaining its ground again. I am so excited, the tremor repeats. I will be published.
A small part of that tremor is, however, a bit of a weight. People will be reading my work, and then they will have an opinion about it. Stay down, little tremor. Isn't that why we write? To get out a story we are mixing around in our heads, something we have to say, some experience or emotion or tribulation we need to express, work through, meet in challenge, because aren't we all going through things, experiencing life in all walks? And how easy is it to think we are alone in it, and how amazing is it to find that we are not? In a book? Written by somebody?

When I read Coming Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher, I slip so easily into her hero's character it scares me. And I love it. I've read it five times.
What stories have you found an affinity to? What stories have you read and as you did, the thought came, "Yes. That's it. That's how it feels. I relate."? Do you hesitate to put your book out there?