We Will See

It's not so much that I've been gone as I had what writer/editor/blogger Kris Rusch calls "life rolls". My folks health isn't what it was and they've needed a little more help. I have the time and my kids are at the stage where they don't need me quite as much. So I've spent quite a lot of time helping out. It's harder to work at my parents because, of course, I'm there to be on their schedule, giving them a hand. My own health has hit a couple of bumpy bits--not serious, per se but not wonderful either.

I've had to amend some of what I write because the genre I was writing in was getting more and more difficult for various reasons. So, I'm diversifying. This has been reasonably successful. I've written two more books and a long novella. These are still in the rough stages. They need time to percolate in the back of my brain.

Of course, I just signed a contract on a book from that original genre.... It's remarkable how suddenly, when I say I need to work, people don't interrupt me quite as much these days. The joy of an actual sale. I must be serious, the thinking goes, because I have signed a contract and there will be money involved.

So this month, there will be actual edits from an actual editor. Next month, there will be a book out in the atmosphere with my pen name attached to it and the name of a publisher who is not me. This is quite scary--and also somewhat exhilarating. To be honest, now that it has had time to sink in and I've actually done the paperwork, I think I'm more terrified than excited. But the first week or so was pretty sweet.

I want to tidy up something awesome to give to my friends at Golden Fleece. In July, I have to finish the series of novellas that track my Ghost Chasing team through their first few investigations. I'd like to finish up one of my succubus/incubus alt history romances too. I've been beating my head against this particular book for a year. I'm not sure how to fix it. I can't dump it. It's part of the over arching series. Like the rest of that series, this PITA needs to go through the self pub process. I'd like to submit a contemporary to my new publisher sometime in the fall--but that needs to be finished as well.

Hmm. As usual, I'm biting off more than I can chew. The rest of my life is pretty busy too, as I said. We'll see, friends and neighbors. We will see.

I'm Late! I'm Late For A Very Important Date!

It's January again and so it's time for my Yearly Goal Post. :-) Whoops! It's actually February, so that  I'm already behind time! I hope that this isn't the way the rest of the year goes.

In terms of productivity, last year was far better than the year before. I didn't meet all of my goals by any means but I worked more, and more often, and with better results than the year before.  I even broke it up with major surgery, elective though it was, and a recovery that took far more out of me than I had planned for. So I definitely do better when I focus a few times a year on whole project and then work on cleaning up projects in between. I do need to make more time to work during the in-between periods. So there is that.

I've been doing some thinking about goals and how they work in my life. I tend to over commit to myself. This year will be no different. But I need to find a way to make that work for me. Some of my thoughts were prompted by some of the other bloggers I follow. (Hello Art of Procrastination blog!) One thing that I think I should do is to set up some year goals. I can cut those down into smaller bites and, from there, even smaller, more agile bites.

On that note, my yearly goals are to self-publish the next Lilith's Children book, to continue to clean up the other two Lilith's Children sequels. I will finish the contemporary menage romance, have it beta'ed, and shop it to some of the erotic romance publishers. I will polish the steampunk ghost-hunter book and shop that one around too. And I will get two new projects off the ground.

Thus, for the rest of February and the beginning of March, I need to concentrate on edits for that Lilith's Children book and on putting together a cover. But first I'm going to fix the cover of the book I self-pubbed last year. As a series, all the Lilith's Children covers need the same visual feel.

I'm debating making April a new project month along with a new project in November a la Nano.

During the late spring through mid-summer and I would work on the two Lilith's Children books that are mostly written but need work--quite a bit of work, actually. And by the late summer, I might be able to squeeze in finishing and shopping the contemporary and the steampunk books. Or conversely, I could swap times and projects, finishing and shopping the non-Lilith's Children pieces first and working the Lilith's Children's pieces second. Either way, the Lilith's Children books need to be out to beta readers and the others shopped about at publishers by October 1. If I manage more than that, I'll give myself a gold star.  :-)

So I might be biting off more than I can chew. There are blog posts to add and jewelry shows that I will probably need to pony up time and pieces to, not to mention the rest of my life. But I'm not giving up those new projects. New projects keep me motivated.

I don't think I'm going to drill down any further because I really do want the weekly goals to be easily changeable, able to pivot on the fly. But they do need to exist. So, on Mondays, I will create them. And that is a goal.

The proof is in the pudding. If I make most of these goals, I'll be ecstatic. But it's here in 'print' for all the moderately interested world to see. It will haunt me all year. Just the way it's supposed to.

Secondses!

 I was going to call this little essay ‘firsts’ but the situations I’m talking about are and are not truly ‘first times’ for me. About three weeks ago I finally got up the nerve to self-publish a novella on Kindle. Pushing the publish button on my novella might have been a first time experience, but it isn’t the first time I’ve put the results of my creativity out there for public consumption. Nor is it the first time that I’ve filed paperwork with the IRS and a corporate entity. But it’s been a long time between events and that made the entire self-publishing experience feel momentous.

I’ve been an SAH (stay-at-home) mom for 20 years. It’s been that long since I’ve been a visibly employed adult. It was harder in some ways to push the button on the legal paperwork than it was to push the publish button.  It reminded me of being 22 and filing my tax paperwork for the first time—only this time there were no hushpuppies, no best friend, no dinner at Red Lobster and, especially, no strawberry daiquiris to cushion against the fears of novice adulthood.

While this may be the first time I’ve published, I make jewelry and sell it in a niche market. I’ve had people say things to me about my jewelry that could be shocking if you’re not a cynic, a pragmatist, or a pessimist. “It’s ugly. I could make better stuff myself,” tends to be the gist of the comments. It might even be true. But usually people don’t.  These days, any negative commentary about my designs just rolls off my back.

Writing, as our Mistress-in-Nano, reminded me recently, is a little different. It is a bit more exposure of ourselves. Growing calluses may take longer. Thus, the sensation of vulnerability—of something staring at the back of my neck—is liable to hang around a while. But it’s certainly not the only time those little hairs on my neck have stood up and reminded me of my exposed emotional backside.

I don’t know what will happen the second time I push the button to publish a piece. The plan is to put the second book in the series up at the end of May. I suspect that it will not be nearly as difficult from all perspectives. As if, by doing it once and working through the angst, I’ve crashed the fear barrier. But we’ll see….

Standing at the Crossroads

I've seen a number of blogs and posts recently on the theme of 'where did all the time go?'. See I know. I know where every minute that I didn't do something on one of my to-do lists went. I felt every agonizing, guilty drawn out minute where I window-shopped on Etsy or watched brawny testosterone-driven twenty-something bros challenge invisible entities with their vocal dominance or listened to people tell their monster stories or played Bejeweled until my eyes hurt. I even did a bunch of medical phone calls of the sort that I dislike. I exercised too--a thing I hate with a passion I reserve for liver in any form and people who treat me like an idiot because I am fat, middle-aged mom who doesn't pull in an actual dollars and cents paycheck.

I'm avoiding something.

I bet you can guess what I'm afraid to do. (Especially if you read my first blog post.)

And you would be right.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

Pretty soon, tonight even, if all goes well, I will upload my novella onto Amazon.

I'm late. But not too late.

Pulling myself out of a rut, ignoring my fears and anxieties... changing... is hard to do. Once I start something like this, no matter what happens; there's no stopping. I've stepped out onto Bilbo's Great Road. So I'm just going to say that this long moment of hesitation is a deep breath. I can give myself one of those.

Behind me is the known. Before me is the unknown. Sitting still and undecided here at the crossroads hasn't done me a lot of good. Heading back the way I came won't work either because it's not the same path as it was when I walked it to get here. Forward is inevitable. I choose to shape the future I want.

My Goals for the Year of Creative Pursuits 2014

Ack. Argh. (That probably dates me for those of us old enough to remember Bill the Cat.) I've been thinking about this for days now! I tried this last year and it was an epic fail. So, I decided that Deep Thought was required to suss out the roots of the issue so that next January's post doesn't begin in exactly the same way.

It's a real issue for me. I have a habit of digging deep into my ruts and staying there in the comfy, squishy space of known territory--even if known territory is just spinning wheels. I'm process-oriented to a fault, you see, and not very brave.

Last year, my main goal was to 'become more like a professional writer' which I defined as writing nearly every day. I had more specific goals but that was the big one. The other major goal was to finish all those nearly done pieces and do something with them. Plus, write new ones. These are not untenable  or impossible goals. Except that last year, I did less writing and finished less work than any year since I started getting serious about this four years or so ago. So what happened? (Visualize that sideways shoulder slump and hunch that accompanies these sorts of questions for me.)

The ways of one's unconscious are by nature and definition mysterious. But for sure, I came to realize that the 'write every day' tenant of everybody from Chuck Wendig to the nice acquaintance on my FB feed who indie pubs doesn't really work for me. I immerse myself in a project--which is why NaNo does work for me. I work in long intense bursts. I just need to create a way to make that happen inside the rest of my life. I need a ramp month (two weeks?) where I research, plot and plan. I need a month or so to focus on the writing. Then I need to leave it alone. (For the flavors to marinate?) Ideally the third month would be used to edit a project that I had finished earlier... Somehow I need to figure out a way to create that kind of work schedule so that it's habit. I need to slip into it and never, or rarely ever, slip out of it. I have enough family support--or I can drum up enough from my kids, who will hate their new chore load--to make it happen, with some adjustments on all our parts. :-)

But that doesn't deal with the other issue--all the 'almost finished' stories that I've written in the last few years. They need a home. Some of them will reside on my hard drive forever, of course. But some really should find readers, I believe. But to find readers, I need to get over myself and get them done. I have one that is so close that I actually have a self-pub cover ready for it and a pseudonym all picked out. It's been read or edited by three people, all of whom liked it. Remember when I said that I wasn't brave? Yeah.

So 2014's goals are:

1. Be Brave. In the immortal words of Chuck Wendig, "finish what you start."

2. Actively adjust my world to support the way that I work even if that makes me feel selfish as all hell.

3. Write at least one new project to set up that schedule.

4. Avoid Scrivener like the Plague. It's a long story. Someday at Panera, over a cup of coffee, I'll tell you about it if you haven't already heard it about a dozen times.

In January, my goals are:

1. Finish writing November's NaNo novel.

2. Do one last go through of Lily.

3. Start the formatting process for Smashwords and Kindle for Lily. Ideally, I'd like self-pubbing Lily to be a goal for the end of February but given that I have a jewelry show at the end of February, March is more realistic.