I’ve been trying to provide romance book recommendations and romcom stories with this newsletter, but today I hope you’ll indulge me if I go off script.
The thing is, I made a decision at the end of last year to start putting my writing out into the world this year. To be less of a perfectionist and just publish, dammit! It felt great to get The 12 Tropes of Christmas into the hands of readers. I want more of that, please.
So I made a plan and mapped out the fiction projects I want to write and publish this year. I started working on cover art and outlines and…almost immediately doubled my goal. And guess what? It might be too much.
I am normally a very organized and driven person. It’s what’s allowed me to be self-employed for much of my life, and it’s what will make me a successful author. But I feel overwhelmed by all the information I need to absorb to become an indie author: new programs and platforms, marketing tips, workshops, and, most importantly, a new workflow. I don’t know what it looks like to go from draft to polished work to published work because I’ve never done that before. I’m sure I’m going to do it wrong the first time. And probably the second.
On top of this is the fact that I need to write the way sharks need to swim. I can’t sleep through the night when an idea is pushing its way out of my head. But writing mode is very different from publishing and promoting mode, and I haven’t yet figured out how to balance the two necessary parts of being an indie author.
The upshot of this is that I neglected my newsletter in January, stopped three-quarters of the way through revising a manuscript I want to get to beta readers, and haven’t finished the short novella I’d hoped to get out in January. And I’ve recognized I need to revise my timeline and what I plan to deliver.
Plus, I drafted a fascinating newsletter on bringing together characters across cultural divides several weeks ago, and I can’t find it anywhere. I’m trying not to take it as a sign my life is falling apart.
I still hope to deliver a trope short story each month for my newsletter subscribers. I had a great time interviewing Alyssa Jarrett, and I plan to do more author interviews this year, plus columns about what I’m reading. And I’ll have more news about where you can find my fiction.
Phew. Thank you. I needed that. Onward!
