6/1–6/6—It’s coming together!
My last week of typing up my edits on my YA manuscript was mayhem. Summer officially hit NYC and summer and my birthday are the only two holidays I celebrate! In addition, my job was full on, so I was working late and then typing up edits until midnight most nights of the week. I was also working to promote my writing sprints and keep up with social media. Phew, but I persisted. I finished my edits according to an adjusted delivery schedule and turned it in to the editors. I felt confident, the manuscript was transformed. It felt like a whole complete piece. I loved it.
Spoiler alert: the love was not returned. More on that in the next Writing Log.
6/7–6/11—Time to tap dance!
Now that my book was turned in, I had three weeks to work on author administration. First up, a publicity task. I had to record a voice memo for a podcast sharing my thoughts on Juneteenth. I thought, oh, is this how it’s done? No real interviews, people just record voice memos and then the podcast folks edit it all together? You learn something new every day! I reviewed a book contract and then I turned to my ebook project. In the long dark years when I couldn’t write, I kept myself going by writing about writing. I wrote a weekly, then monthly, then sporadic email posts about why I wasn’t writing, what I was writing, what other people were struggling about with writing. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I later learned that all those years of posting helps me to develop my craft and my writing style—even though I wasn’t writing fiction. Incredible. Some years back, I determined I’d turn them into ebooks—ten columns per book. Because I like to give myself “easy” goals, I decided I’d done ebook per year. I saw this as an interim step of making some kind of book out of them. I did four ebooks over the course of four years and then just stalled at the fifth volume. I’d already compiled it, but left it sitting in a file for about three years. So I pushed away my reluctance, reviewed it and got it copy edited it then sent it to the ebook coder. Phew.
I find that we often have much more to offer than we realize. More expertise, more products, more possibility, but 1) it can be challenging to package up our work and 2) it is somehow easy to overlook the value of our work. When we don’t get big success, then we feel that our work isn’t being validated. I’ve been practicing putting things out there and building channels for my work for the future. I release myself from the pressure of success and keep building so that once my star hits, I already have built the pathways for my work to be accessed. Are my ebooks bestsellers? No, they barely sell anything, but I’m convinced that once I have a bigger audience my ebooks will too. Time will tell!
6/14–6/18—How much administration do I have to go through?
I know that the machinations required to get things done is a dealbreaker for many people. It’s hard enough to do your creative and/or entrepreneurial work. When you pair that with the administration you need to put things out, some people just get exhausted with the machinations. Welp, I had a week of mix-ups and errors that underscored what’s challenging about administration. I bought P.O. Box so I wouldn’t have to register my address with my newsletter provider, but I bought it in some other neighborhood, not mine. Ugh. Had to cancel and get a new P.O. Box. Then to prevent fraud, you have to show up at the post office with your lease or your voter registration card and your ID. I had to return twice because I didn’t realize how long the wait would be. Whew. Then I bought Photoshop so I could continue making graphics, but I bought it for a Windows instead of a Mac. Dang! I had to get it exchanged before I could use it. But I persisted on both fronts and I was able to promote the next writing sprint and send out my next newsletter!
How much of the job description of being a modern-day author is about staying in touch with the audience? I have no idea. You do a lot of tap dancing and hope your outreach makes an impact with your audience. And you need tools to show up and meet readers where they are. You need tools that you need to buy and then you need to learn to use them effectively—and all of that takes patience!
6/21–6/25—What is rest?
I work hard to keep some kind of balance in my life. When I’m on deadline, everything is on 100 all the time. It’s like go, go, go. When I’m not on deadline, I’m scrambling to catch up with everything I don’t have bandwidth for when I am on deadline. While I was writing the YA draft, the way I organized things was to do writing on the YA during the week and do author administration and When the World Turned Upside Down promotions on the weekend. You do the math! When you add in my day job and I was working all the time. I grabbed pockets of time all throughout June to put the finishing touches on my site. When the end of June came, it was time to promote the site, promote the writing sprints, promote my upcoming workshop Writing What Scares You, AND promote the anthology I am coediting. I began to feel like all I was doing was promoting and it was not encouraging! Also during this time, I had a call with my agent about my very first novel manuscript and about other potential projects. How can I think of the future when I’m working on today?
More than once, I have reflected on rest. As long as I have a day job and the writing is extra, I will be working beyond a sustainable capacity. And in the breaks, I am supposed to be thinking of the next project and the next thing! I currently don’t have that bandwidth, so I’m not quite dreaming the next fiction project, but I am working on some nonfiction book ideas and some more writing support options. I don’t know if they feel safer and easier than fiction, but the idea of jumping into another project during the break is frightening. The fact remains, if you are going to launch yourself into a new area, you will have to do it on your own time. How? Only God knows!
Onward!
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REFLECTION
As the summer has arrived, I have more of a desire to step out into the sunshine and enjoy my days, so I am daily looking for peace in the paradox. Peace in the moments of panic. We do the impossible by focusing on the segments that are possible and exercising influence there. I am in a large phase of expansion. So I am practicing being available for expansion without being dragged along by it. Having a full life without depleting myself. Juggling is grabbing, holding, and releasing objects one by one. The release is as important as the hold.
Self-Talk Script: I will take the path of peace. I will take the moments to rest. I will not confuse pushing forward with straining against my needs, my health, my sanity, or my stability. I will remain fluid and push where I have energy, but embrace rest every single time I need to take a breath.