April 13, 2022
Week 79
Emotional State: Moving to Zen
Books & Writing
I’ve finished editing Book Two, for now. It needs at least one more round of edits before going to an editor and beta readers, but it feels like the story structure is in a good place. The next step is polishing the language, which is where I’d hoped to be at this point but am not. And that is okay.
Mostly.
The day I finished putting in the last page of edits, I had a yen. A yen to write, but not my fantasy series. Nope, my cozy mystery series instead. So I dusted it off, reread a good portion of it to see where I was (it had been several months after all), and then started typing away. I’ve written six chapters since and the plan is to finish draft 1 of it this month.
I know. That would mean yet more editing, since I need to finish Book Two, edit Book Three and somehow edit the cozy as well. I do know the trail of edits won’t work – I get bored, antsy. I want to create; not recreate something I’ve already gotten down on paper. This month shows me that in stark relief. But that’s alright. I’ll figure out later how to make it all work. My schedule is my own and I get to choose what I’m working on.
And somewhere in this schedule, I’d like to write another cozy, maybe two, so that I can rapid release them. That will require major calendar manipulations. I’m up for the task. It had been my original plan but then a funny thing happened…
I let other people tell me what I should do and the worst part of it all — I listened.
Impostor Syndrome, Doubt, & Finding my Zen
Remember last week’s journal? No, me either, but to summarize, I felt good about where I was out about my writing. My book was good (is still good) and the story solid. I still feel that way, but I believe I also mentioned that another curveball would find me in another way outside of my book and how I felt about it.
And it did.
This isn’t your average impostor syndrome tale. I have no issues with my ability to create a good story, write it out, and get to the masses who may or may not like it. And I’m completely fine with those who don’t – reading is subjective. No, this tale takes a turn (I said it would) to the other side of writing – publishing, brand and business choices.
When I was setting up my publishing schedule for my series, I initially planned on making time for the cozy series as well and dropping it in between my other books. And then I read a few FB posts in a really helpful group on the business side of publishing, and everyone said the same thing: focus on one genre first, get your brand solid, and then branch out.
I didn’t like that answer, not one bit, but I listened and pushed off my dream of publishing that series to 2025, when the last of my fantasy books were due out.
In more recent moments, I had a tweet go viral. It was a grammar tweet, nothing crazy. In it, I had one person give their opinion and insinuate my writing is amateurish and clunky if I use that kind of sentence structure. She doubled down later and said it was a sign of a self-published author, which I am.
These statements about a short sentence in a tweet set off some insecurities. I’ve seen this sort of debate and comments from readers before, but this was a traditionally published author who saw herself as superior to me in a number of ways. It bugged me, like a small cut on my finger aggravated by a thumb ring. Not all the time, but every so often.
And then this morning I thought about it and realized I was perceiving her comments in a way she may or may not have intended. Either way, I was choosing to see it as a slight, a dig, an insult. And even worse, a truth.
It is not a truth unless I agree with her. I don’t. It is not a truth unless I take it on board as being about me. It’s not. Or maybe it is, but that’s her problem not mine. It only becomes my problem, or became my problem, when I took to be about me.
When my tweet went viral and people were making all sorts of assumptions about my writing, about my experience, and some being insulting, I laughed it off. I found it fascinating, but not hurtful. I had reached a new level of Zen.
My stumble on that writer’s opinion shook it a little, scattered some dust on my Zen-ness. I’ve brushed off my mat and removed the doubt and the insecurity dirt I took on to once again get back to my Zen.
There’s no place I’d rather be.
Working on my cozy this month has given me a new perspective. It’s my path and my choice, just like listening to that writer’s comment. Whether or not I publish my cozy books this year or in 2026 is entirely up to me. The people I listened to in that post gave great advice, but I failed to listen to the most important person in the room.
Me.