April 20, 2022
Week 80
Emotional State: Back to Square One
Books, Life, & Rebirth
I’m back to editing Book two. I know, I know. I promise I’m not over-editing it. I’m doing a read out loud edit, which helps to find the clunky sentences, the inartful phrases and the typos that abound in a manuscript. It’s going well and I’m sending it to betas in May so that I can focus on Book Three.
I’m still writing the cozy, but I’ve slowed down since I started using my early morning time for Book two. I still think I may finish… maybe. There’s no rush, because I’ve decided I need to rethink this thing called publishing, marketing, and all that it entails.
I’ve been pushing forward, following everyone’s advice, not following their advice, resisting their advice, and generally just tying myself in knots. And I’m not happy about it. I want to be happy. I want to be excited to get the next book done, excited to share it with everyone. But I’m not. I’m tired. And to be honest, just a little discouraged.
You hear that only 2% of people finish writing a book. You go for it and you achieve that goal – you become part of the 2%. It makes you feel like a superhero, like a special snowflake. And some people warn you that the work is just begun, but most don’t. They focus on that one achievement – writing and finishing the book.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a HUGE achievement. Huge. Really big. I’m not knocking it, but I wish I had gone into the rest of it a bit more prepared, a bit less overwhelmed, and a lot more realistic than I did.
Someone in one of the many writer FB groups I follow said that when you hit publish, you’re no longer an author, but a business. I wanted them to be wrong. I wanted the fairytale of writing a book and people clamoring to buy it. I wanted to be the unicorn in the tale. But they’re not wrong, and I don’t live in a fairytale.
Sure, you can write a ton of books, publish them or not publish them, and still be a writer. But if you want people to read them, if you want people to get lost in the world of your book(s), you have to see it as a business. Not an easy business either, a claw-your-way-through-it kind of business.
It’s exhausting. And a bit disheartening after all the effort to see no sales or one sale in a month, or a few page reads on KU. Add to that the effort you put into online marketing and social media – networking, chatting, connecting, posting, responding – and when it ends up not moving any real needle, well, you wonder what it’s all for.
I’m not stopping. I’m going to continue writing my books and putting them out. I’m also going to market them and figure out what works until it stops working. This is not the end for me, not by a long shot, but it is a sort of beginning.
Forty-nine trips around the sun. That’s how many I’ve experienced. I’m halfway through life, if I live to 100. And I just might. Coming up to this day, I’ve been contemplating my life, the decisions I made or let other people influence, when I am fully me and when I’m not, the moments where I let doubt and fear stop me from doing, being, dreaming, achieving.
It’s like I am shedding my skin this year. Not a skin that did me wrong or that I didn’t like, but a skin that wasn’t quite my own, that didn’t shine the way I wanted it to or hid those things I was scared to show. A skin I put on in some cases, not all, for others. I’m done with that. (I’m going to give it my best shot anyway – it’s been 49 years in the making and you don’t get over it just like that).
What does that mean? I’m not sure, but it does mean I’m going to be myself, all 100 shades of me. I’m not going to let someone else dictate or influence my choices. I’m going to own my space, my life, my experiences, and my choices in a way I was afraid to before.
And it also means I need to reset, regroup, step back and figure out where I want to go in the next half of my lifetime. When I look back at 100 years old, I’d like to see that shift, see the change, and know that while it may have been hard, it was also the best thing I ever did.
I’m resetting and regrouping on social media as well. I want to think hard about my strategy, where I put my time, and how to put my book(s) in the best light. I want to work smarter, not harder. I’m still moving forward with my publishing plan as well. I like how I set out my urban fantasy series. I may write more or less books. I may write and publish my cozy series this year, or maybe not.
I’m going to listen to what I want to do. Make a plan for what I want to achieve. And like the pantser-then-plotter I am, I going see where my mind takes me.
Even if that means starting over again.