August 18, 2021
Day 321, Week 45
- Emotional State: I’m giving it all I’ve got
The First Book
The book launches next week.
Next. Week.
There’s this mix inside to that statement. On the one hand, there’s a small voice saying ‘Squeeeeee!’. On the other, there’s the overwhelmed, slightly burnt out voice droning on about what needs to happen to make that happen.
They are both right, but I wish the Squee voice was louder. I wish I was so excited I could barely sleep. Like Christmas morning excited. Like bursting out of my skin excited. But alas, I am not.
Because my ego, my imposter syndrome, the evil troll that sits on my shoulder is talking louder than the Squee voice. I’ve spent the past week feeling inept at everything. Can’t get the internet to work – I’m a failure. Windows 10 breaks – I’m a failure. Dinner is slightly overcooked – failure. Typo in a post- failure… and on and on and on it goes.
It doesn’t help that I am overwhelmed by tasks, prep, books to read, books to review, posts to write, a new website to finish designing, and researching plugins, buttons, strategies. All to launch my book. I am giving it everything and it is drowning me. Or rather, it was drowning me.
My husband, seeing my turmoil, sat me down on Sunday to create an OSMG document – objectives, strategy, measurement, tasks – to put it all back into proper perspective. To pull me out of the rabbit hole I’ve been sucked down in my I-need-to-do-all-the-things-right-nowness and I still managed to turn that into an inept human commentary about me.
He’s a strategist, I’m a task-oriented human. This is why I’m good at the admin and he’s good at the big picture thinking. It’s also why he’s better at world building; he starts large and boils it down to small. I’d go down one path and get sucked sideways to another and then another. My world would never get built if it was on me to do so.
Back to the spreadsheet though. Similar to when we were building the world, I focused on the minutiae and he focused on the overall structure. He wanted to talk about what was immediately important – getting the book launched on the platforms. I kept discussing the marketing, the website, the promotion. My brain just didn’t want to wrap itself around the larger picture. He wanted strategies to list out and I couldn’t tell you what was a strategy, a goal or a task.
And thus, the inept human thought. But we (he) overcame my issues and now I have a pretty spreadsheet giving me the priorities in a way that makes sense. I walked away from that conversation feeling low and also like nothing needed to be done right then and there. You know, like I suck and also like I can’t be bothered to do anything because it’s all irrelevant anyway.
Brains are stupid. After feeling sorry for myself, I read a book – one of my favorites designed to pull me out of myself and into a story (it’s the next review on my TBT reviews by the way). The best medicine for what I had going on because nothing else was going to work. And it did.
And then the Universe decided to pitch in to help. On Monday, a book arrived from a former writing student, with an inscription to me that was really flattering. And then on Tuesday, I was named the DE of the week at work, which meant I didn’t suck as an editor, so I couldn’t be all bad as a human.
And today? Well, today I had a conversation with my current editor and she basically told me I was overthinking it (I was), that I was doing everything correctly (phew!), and that I needed to practice some self-care (I am – date night tonight!).
Also, marketing a book is not a one shot deal. It’s constant and forever. I need to calm down, follow my plan, do some testing to see what works best, and STOP stressing so much about it all. My life isn’t going to end if I don’t do that Instagram post or film that TikTok video.
At least I don’t think so… right now.
To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.