2014: Year in Review

My last post was quite awhile ago and I was writing about needing a business plan. I was right on target for following that business plan when BAM! things changed. You know the saying: Life happens while you're busy making plans.

In March, I was pulled in to be a project manager on an important proposal at my day job. That lasted for an entire month, and just when I was able to breathe again, BAM! I found out I was pregnant. That sent my husband and me into a tailspin and by the time I had wrapped my head around creating a new human being, I was dragged into another project as project manager and dealing with HORRIBLE first trimester symptoms.

The intensity of the first trimester plus the project left me with little room for having any kind of personal or writing life. And when the work project wrapped up mid second trimester, I was placed on bed rest for a pregnancy induced herniated disc. Once I came back from that, I finished up my role with the current project and that brings us up to mid August.

The rest of August, September and October where spent taking a breather. I was tired--mentally and physically. Not to mention, I had neglected my personal life and hadn't began doing anything baby related. Who knew being pregnant was such hard work? I took a much needed break to refocus. And I decided late October to do NaNoWriMo to get my creative juices flowing again.

The problem? November 1st came and went and I wasn't motivated to start the sequel to The Two Worlds. I actually felt bad about it and began to panic--what if I was losing my writing mojo? What was wrong with me? I scoured my writing vault (where all unfinished works live) and found a paranormal mystery I had written last year for NaNoWriMo and never touched again. So I brushed off the dust, added a few more thousand words and now I have a first draft of a story that I'm really excited about.

For the rest of the year, I will be finishing up prepping for the new kid and wrapping up things at the day job. I usually write a plan for the upcoming year, but since I have no idea what life is going to be like with a baby, I'm forcing myself to take it bit by bit until we get into a routine. Ideally, I would like to have a second draft of the paranormal mystery done by April 2015. And I'm currently working on that right now.

All in all, life happened. Lots of surprises, good and not so good, and lots of adjusting my schedule and my mentality. The most important lesson I learned in 2014 is that you can only take things day by day and you have to be flexible--especially as an indie author. I have to admit: I can't wait to see what 2015 brings! 

Coming Back to the Writing World

These months since my wedding have flown by! We are now settled in and have adopted a puppy since then. We now have two cats and a dog, so my life has been very interesting! I can never say that I don't have any inspiration. ;)

I've started working on my new paranormal romance book and I'm very excited. I've also pulled The Two Worlds and have decided that I am going to have a professional editor look at the ms, revise and then republish. I'll also have a professional graphic designer work on the cover for me. I love my readers and want only the very best versions of my work out there for their enjoyment.

I hope to be done with the romance book by the end of this year. I'm rejoining my year round NaNoWriMo writing group that meets on Sundays in hopes of blocking off chunks of time to crank it out. I've updated the bar on the right so you guys can track my progress.

 That's all for now! I can't tell you how happy I am to have a fresh story to write!

Procrastination and the Fear of Failure

I'm a huge procrastinator. As in, I'll sit down dutifully to write and then become distracted by a minuscule piece of dust....on the ceiling...that must be cleaned at that very moment! Heck, I'm struggling right now to write this post and I keep stopping to fix spelling errors instead of just getting the words out!

Over the past years, I've come to realize that my procrastination is directly tied to fear. And I have a lot of it. I'm a perfectionist and a researcher which is a deadly combination. If you give me a task without a very specific set of instructions, I'll research every way possible to get that task completed. For something like writing a book (the topic has tons of advice out there on how to do it), this research can take years. Because of that, it took me seven years to write 35,000 words and be ok with the outcome.

Atychiphobia (or fear of failure) is common among most newbie writers. You don't know what to expect and you feel as though the whole world is watching you with a smirk on its face as if to say, 'See? I told you you'd fail.' Everyone but yourself becomes an expert and you must follow all of their advice. When those little voices of doubt pop up in my head, everything comes to a screeching halt and I suddenly find myself tackling those household chores I'd been ignoring or surfing Facebook and getting wrapped up in kitty memes. 

So how do you get over it? 

I wish I could tell you a 100% guaranteed method. The final push for The Two Worlds was knowing that I was holding myself up from other projects and knowing that it didn't have to be perfect. My family was still proud of me when I self-published it, I still felt a sense of accomplishment and the world didn't stop spinning when I didn't make any sales. The work was out there, it was completed and I had learned a heck of a lot along the way. What more could I ask for? 

As I start my second book, I feel that fear gripping me again ('You don't know what you're doing!', 'You'll have all this work to do and you won't have a life!', 'It'll be a horrible experience just like the last!') and procrastination rearing its ugly head despite my first accomplishment. But this time I'm a bit wiser. I know how long it should take me to write a book. I know how fast I can type. I know how to edit my work and how to create a book cover. I know how to begin marketing myself. And I have a new way of thinking.  

What's the worst that could happen? 

In the book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells us that when fear grips our consciousness and we start to worry, ask ourselves a simple question: What's the worst that could happen?

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon—instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Why are we such fools—such tragic fools?

“How strange it is, our little procession of life!” wrote Stephen Leacock. “The child says, ‘When I am a big boy.’ But what is that? The big boy says, ‘When I grow up.’ And then, grown up, he says, ‘When I get married.’ But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to ‘When I’m able to retire.’ And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.” 

When I ask myself that question, the only thing that comes to mind is that people will not like my work and not take me seriously as a writer. If that happens, my feelings would be hurt, but my income is not tied to writing fiction so I wouldn't go homeless and perhaps that criticism would force me to be a better writer. If folks aren't receptive of my work, that's ok! 

Keeping that in mind has helped me tremendously. Even though I still procrastinate, the instances where I let it derail me are becoming less frequent. 

After all, this post has been written hasn't it? :)

Your turn: Do you find yourself procrastinating on big projects, even if it's your dream work? How do you overcome it? 

Checking In!

It's been pretty quiet around this blog because we've been settling in to our new apartment and dealing with a very busy work schedule! Oh, and did I mention that we're also planning a last minute wedding for February 2013? Yikes!

I have two full weeks from work starting December 21st and I am looking forward to it! I already have my ending to my mystery story, I just need to write it. The plan is to write the ending and start arranging it so I can edit it successfully.

Two things that I want to work on with this manuscript are:

1) Getting through editing quicker. At 50-60,000 words, it shouldn't take me months on end to edit. Now that I've found an editing checklist that works for me, hopefully I can get through it within 2-3 months. And...

2) Perfecting my Kindle formatting. Okay, The Two Worlds was a nightmare. And it's STILL not perfect. I wrote it on various Word versions across a period of seven years. The formatting was all messed up and didn't want to cooperate when it was time to put it on Amazon. But since I will be charging for the mystery story, I need to deliver formatting perfection.


All in all, I think wrapping up the draft for the unnamed mystery is a great way to spend my holiday vacation. What about you? Do you have any writing goals to hit during the holiday season?


(P.S.- Check out my review of Witchling by Ari Harper on Urban Girl Reader!)

Dabbling in the Mysteries

I'm indecisive. While cleaning out my Google Docs queue, I found an old NaNoWriMo manuscript that I had put aside and never looked at again. It's a mystery, something that I had never written before and had a great time writing during NaNoWriMo. After reading it, I decided it was too good to toss back into the shoe box and am now thinking about finishing it, then writing my paranormal romance then turning back to YA fantasy.

I know, I know. Indecisive.

The beautiful thing about me being an amateur writer is that I have total freedom to do things like pick and choose the projects that I want to work on. I'm not bound to a publishing contract, and I don't have a slew of fans chomping at the bit to find out what happens next with a character. I'm also not sure if I want to deviate from the self publishing route right now. So I can create my own writing schedule and as long as I finish the project that I'm working on, I have no qualms.

Of course, this type of mentality works best when you're not trying to make a living writing. :) My goals are to continue finishing manuscripts (edited, published, marketed) for the next few years. I want to get better at ALL aspects of producing work and that comes with practice. If I snag an unsuspecting agent, awesome. If I *gasp* get a publishing contract, fantastic. But it's not on the top of the to do list.

That type of thinking is freeing and inspiring all at the same time.
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My mother gave me sound advice a few weeks ago when I was fretting over not being able to do everything at once and it fits my writing attitude perfectly: "It's your life, dummy. You make the rules."

Good point Mom.

The Two Worlds is Live!

Did you have a Happy Thanksgiving? I can't believe we're in the holiday season already. Christmas songs are already playing on the radio, yikes!

The Two Worlds went live on November 23rd as planned, despite me being very sick (stupid head cold) and moving to a new place. Talk about dedication!

Now that The Two Worlds is out in the real world, I can focus the majority of my attentions to my next project...my paranormal romance. I'm super excited! It was tough choosing between the second installment of The Two Worlds or a new story all together. But I think after working on my first novella for almost seven years (yes, you read that right), it's time for me to try my hand at a novel.

For those who have published a novel or novella already, how hard was it for you to start your second book?

Balancing Writing and Living

"I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles."-Zig Ziglar

 

Over the last few years I've matured quite a bit. This isn't to say I don't have a lot more growing up to do (because I do, trust me!!). But I'm learning what it means to actually LIVE life. I mentioned in the previous post that I was only sticking to two goals for 2013 so I wouldn't stress myself out. Let me explain that decision:

When I decided to take writing seriously a few years ago, I was more focused on blogging. Everywhere you looked, there were posts and articles about the "secrets of successful bloggers". I had been blogging successfully already since 2005, but when 2009 came rolling around, I threw out all of my knowledge from experience and started focusing on making money from blogging based on what the experts were saying. From there, I also started focusing on writing for money as well.

Big mistake.

In my experience, any time you take a creative thing that you love and try to force it to make a profit (painting, music, writing, etc.), it's going to backfire. In one of my favorite books, Boss Lady by OmarTyree, his main character Tracey reminisces, 'And those who create for the love of ART are CONSISTENTLY getting better, but those who create for the love of money...those guys are forever getting worse.'

 

I had to learn that the hard way.

 

I threw out passion and went with writing what sold. I started cooking/lifestyle blogs even though I had nothing to say about those topics. I tried writing personal finance, even though I was still trying to fine tune my own personal finance. I tried freelance writing but  I wasn't committed enough. Each time I failed and became more discouraged. But much like dieting, instead of taking a step back and reevaluating why I was failing, I just blindly jumped back on the bandwagon and hoped the next time would be different.

It wasn't.

I was stressed and stretched too thin. On top of being 1000% focused on different writing goals, I was also trying to get healthier and have more of a social/personal life. Needless to say, I was failing in those arenas too.

 

The situation reached a boiling point when I stopped writing a few months ago. I stopped working on The Two Worlds, stopped blogging, stopped writing articles. I was sick of writing and was seriously thinking of giving it up. What was the point? I was beginning to hate the whole act of creating.

That mental break was the best thing that I could have done, whether I knew it at the time or not. It gave me time to recharge my batteries and think long and hard about what I wanted to do with myself. I toyed with other career venues (such as being an archivist), but kept coming back to writing fiction. And so, I decided to pick back up my pen and get to writing characters the way I wanted to, not the way the experts were telling me.

I'm still learning, of course. Writing faster and more efficiently, editing with more accuracy, and marketing are all areas that need improvement. But I'm not killing myself to get there. That comes with time, not a hundred goals per month.

This new attitude has just recently spilled over into other aspects of my life--such as working out (I was trying to go from having two knee injuries to running in a race within a very short time and it wasn't working) and my personal finances (I'm 25 years old, not going to be a millionaire anytime soon!).

 

I'm just trying to live for life, not for goals or to-do lists. And this type of thinking is inspiring me in more ways that I ever would have imagined.

 

Goals for 2013

I love numbers. Seriously. If I wasn't so interested in writing, I would be in banking. As a matter of fact, my first job out of college was in insurance. In a year's time, I was promoted twice and federally licensed to sell annuity products and insurance.

I also love goals. Anything that will push me towards a successful future is right up my alley! Which is why every year, I sit down and write out my career goals for the next year. Some years I'm successful, other years I'm not.

For 2013, I'm sticking to my earlier resolve and not over-extending myself.  I decided my goals are:

1) To write one book (or novella)
2) To post to this blog twice a month

Very, very low key goals for myself. Usually I have a five page plan with charts, market research and LOTS of numbers, but I'm wanting to keep my stress down in 2013. (More on that later...)

I figure if I have easy goals, I will still feel challenged enough (writing a book is not easy after all) but able to accomplish my goal.  It's the basic idea behind S.M.A.R.T. goals.

What about you? What are your writing or personal goals for 2013?