How Badly Do You Want It?

I've been busy lately. (Nothing new there.) I've been fiddling around with a few different stories that are in varying stages of completion. I've been rereading the Harry Potter series and loving (almost) every moment of it. I've been promoting Rage's Echo like the dickens. (Quick question: How did something ever end up being "like the dickens"? Why don't we say "like the shakespeare" or "like the hemingway"? I actually don't like the shakespeare OR the hemingway [despite the quote I have here on this blog], but that's all a matter of personal taste, and I have absolutely nothing against those who enjoy the work of those authors.)

Where was I? Oh yeah.

Even though the official release for Rage's Echo is still over a month away (you can preorder it here), I have been having pre-release signings left and right. I've been tweeting about it and Facebooking about it, and I even have a giveaway going on over on Goodreads where you can enter to win a copy (you can find that link here). I wish I could rent ten thousand billboards proclaiming the awesomeness that is Rage's Echo to all the lands.

My biggest wish of all is that people will read it and enjoy it and encourage others to do the same.

There are some authors who write a book and then do nothing to promote it. I would be surprised if more than a few dozen people--friends and family members of the author, most likely--get to read their book. It might be an amazing book. It might be life-changing. But people aren't going to read it if they don't know it exists, and people aren't going to know it exists if the author doesn't make an effort to get the word out about it.

If an author wants his or her book to be read by a large number of people, they have to work at it. The amount of their effort depends on how badly they want their story to be read.

But this idea doesn't just stop at authors. Do you have a goal in mind? For example, do you want to take a month-long tour of Europe? Are you saving as much money as you can for it? If not, then you must not want to go that badly. If you want to go to Europe badly enough, you will cut back on unnecessary expenses so you can put away more money for the trip. You will clip coupons and stop eating out. You'll keep the lights off. Anything to cut back, even if you're saving only a few dollars at a time.

How badly do you want to reach your goal? What steps have you been taking to reach it?