Category Archives: Business

Holiday Reflections

Author's Perspective Balancing Acts Being Gentle With Yourself Sean Golden The Writing Life Your Writing Career No Comments

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Colorado and back for Christmas. A major part of the trip was to carry all my daughter’s stuff up there from Arkansas since she has just moved into an apartment. That meant hauling my trailer, which keeps my max highway speed somewhere around 65mph, or less. We left Saturday morning, got there about 2am Sunday morning after dealing with blizzard conditions for the last four or five hours (guessing why I left Colorado?) and almost being the victim of a spinout in front of us on I-70. Then after spending Christmas eve unpacking and helping my daughter set up her apartment, we spent most of Christmas day doing Christmas stuff. Then we headed back around 6pm, taking two days to get back since I have to get to work tomorrow morning and didn’t want to deal with coming home at 2am and getting up at 6am to go to work.

So…

Image result for Frodo it's over

Now, having said all that, I do have some thoughts about the holiday season in general, and specifically as a writer.

I find it difficult to write during holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are so many demands on a person’s time, between shopping, getting together with friends or family, cooking, driving from one place to another and back… I generally consider Thanksgiving through New Years as “down time” and any writing I can get done is a bonus.

I figure there’s more than enough stress in the holiday season without adding writing 2,000 words a day to the list. I know there are many writers who have no problem with that. I don’t appear to be one of them. At least not this year.

If other writers are struggling with the same thing, my advice would be to try to avoid the stress of the additional demands of self-imposed deadlines on projects that are not committed, especially not financially committed. Just as business folk are reminded frequently that nobody ever wished they spent more time at the office when on their death bed, even writers can look back and wish they had spent more time with their families. Especially on the holidays.

2017 In Review: On Big Wins, New Wounds, and Old Demons – A Guest Post by Shannon Fox

Being Gentle With Yourself Craft & Skills Critique Groups Goals Making Progress as a Writer Reflection Self-Motivation The Writing Life Your Writing Career 2 Comments

A guest post by Shannon Fox.

There’s nobody who pushes me harder than myself. I set the bar high when it comes to my professional development and I’m constantly challenging myself with new goals. Sometimes I fantasize about what life would be like if I was the sort of person who was content to come home from work, eat dinner, and sit on the couch watching TV for the rest of the night. And then I get itchy thinking about all that wasted time and potential and quickly shelve that idea.

So when life gets in the way and forces me to revise my goals, I have a hard time being kind to myself and not feeling like I failed. Even if I ultimately accomplish everything I set out to do, I have a hard time seeing it as a “win” because I didn’t achieve it on my original timeline. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s just how I’m wired.

As I’m looking back on 2017, I find myself facing a surprising amount of objective wins: I rewrote an entire novel this year and started on the next revision. I attended two writing conferences, had some face-to-face conversations with literary agents, and pitched for the first time. I kept up with creating content for my book review and writing blog, Isle of Books, which saw more traffic that ever this year. I had several blogs and articles published by different companies in the equine industry. I even won a contest with one of those blogs! I started a free marketing resource site, Minute Marketing, and have been creating content for that as well. And Goodreads tells me I’ve read 65 books so far this year.

Yet, it’s too easy for me to focus on what didn’t happen:

My primary book about Nikola Tesla is still not ready for the querying process. So I still don’t have an agent and I still haven’t sold a book. My other books continue to sit around, gather dust, and wait for me to get around to fixing them. If I ever will.

And the worst of all the things that didn’t happened this year? My writing is still not where I want to be. I know that writing isn’t really a thing you master. It’s something you work at for your entire life. But I feel like I’m making glacial progress, which was further reinforced by a few incidents that happened to me this summer.

Simply put, I suffered a blow to my confidence that took me several months to get over. Portions of my book were reviewed in a couple of different public settings and let’s just say that it didn’t go well. The criticism itself wasn’t particularly savage, but it was relentless and hammering and left my confidence completely shredded all the same. Worse than the pain of that lost confidence though is that I really thought I was stronger and tougher than that. That I didn’t let people get under my skin anymore and that I could take criticism with the best of them. I’ve done so much growing over the years and have had to pick myself up and dust myself off so often I thought I had exorcised that particular demon. I guess not.

When I look back on 2017, I see some big wins and a few failures too. But with 2018 looming on the horizon, I’m working on being as kind to myself as I am to other people. I’ve been trying to be consistent about doing daily positive affirmations, which I do think really, really help. Not only do they make me feel happier and more positive, I feel like some really incredible opportunities have been showing up because I’ve been putting what I want out there so much.

In case this would be helpful to anyone else, here are a few of my affirmations that are writing specific:

  • I am working on my craft and growing as a writer.
  • I am refining my personal writing style and voice to make my stories uniquely me.
  • I am focusing on telling the best story possible.
  • I am attracting only those people who will help and support me in my journey and repelling that which doesn’t serve me.
  • I am open to receiving opportunities that will carry me further towards my goals.

If any of you are also struggling with having confidence in your art, I encourage you to try doing some affirmations before you sit down to write or edit – don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! I feel like my writing sessions are more productive and successful if I’ve done affirmations before starting.

2017 wasn’t the year to top all years like I’d hoped it would be, but I learned a lot and got more clarity on my career goals. I know 2018 has some really exciting opportunities in the pipeline for me and while I can’t share what they are yet, I am confident 2018 will be my best year ever! I know the journey certainly won’t be smooth, but calm seas never did make for a skillful sailor.

 

About Shannon Fox:

I have a B.A. in Literature-Writing from UC-San Diego. I write novels and short stories, particularly young adult, contemporary, historical, and science fiction. I maintain my own blog of book reviews and writing advice at IsleofBooks.com. I am a regular blogger for Equine Journal and Coastal Premier Properties.  I have authored over 200 articles and blogs for online and print publication. I was also a research assistant to the authors for the published novels Teen 2.0 and Against Their Will. In addition to writing, my professional background is in marketing and advertising. I run a free marketing resource for entrepreneurs and small business owners at www.MinMarketing.com.

Into the Fire-A Leap of Faith From My Day Job into Full-Time Writer

Day Jobs Jo Schneider The Writing Life Your Writing Career 2 Comments

Currently I work in the Engineering Department at a company that makes hand-crafted, wrought iron lights for really rich people. I take sketches from our design team, or from the customer, and figure out how to build them, creat blue prints (except there’s no blue involved anymore) for the guys in the shop and send the project out.

I’ve been at this job for fifteen years. And I love the work. I like figuring out how to make a light that looks like a gondola, or a hat. I enjoy most of the people I work with. And I’m good at what I do.

But it’s not what I really want to be doing.

A couple of years ago, not long after I got married, I went part time at my day job and part time writing. Since then I’ve put out seven novels, three novellas and a handful of short stories. I tried the traditional publishing path, then converted to hybrid (both traditional and indie). I’ve never replace my monthly income from my day job with my writing…but I could.

  • If I learned marketing.
  • If I figured out Facebook Ads.
  • If I read some books on business.
  • If I spent more time researching Amazon and keywords.
  • If I wrote romance.
  • If I had 10k people on my newsletter.

If, if, if…All of these things have been hanging over my head all year. If only I had time to (fill in the blank) I would be a more successful writer.

Now, plenty of people hold down full-time jobs and are successful writers. Some are stay at home moms who work even harder than those with full-time jobs. So I kind of feel like a whiner when I say that I need more time.

But then my husband pointed something out. What I do for my day job is mentally taxing. It uses my creative energy, and often I come home with little to none left.

And as I thought about that, I thought about the fact that I was putting 25-30 hours

a week toward a career that I was never going to cultivate. I learn new things all the time, but I’m not particularly motivated to memorize how many LED drivers and chips are needed for a twenty foot chandelier that looks like elk horns. Or how to use the new 3D program when I’m faster than everyone else in the 2D program I’ve worked in for twenty years.

The realization came to me that I wasn’t being fair to either of my careers.

My inner writer was always upset that I put my day job first, and I wasn’t giving my full effort to my day job, because it’s not the job I want.

So, a few months ago I decided that this would be my last year at my current job. Starting today, December 22nd, I will officially be a full-time writer!

Which is both exhilarating and terrifying. I might crash and burn, or I might rise out of obscurity and into the realms of those selling enough books to replace my lost income. I’ve tried to prepare, but to tell you the truth, I think it’s going to be like getting thrown into the fire no matter what. But a bit of fire is good in the winter, right?

 

Year in Review

Being Gentle With Yourself Day Jobs Dealing With Personal Calamities Giving Yourself a Break Goals Kim May Publishing The Writing Life The Writing Process Work-Life Balance Your Writing Career 2 Comments

Oh boy. Do I really want to go over the entirety of my journey? Can’t I just brush it aside and forget it ever happened?

Well…no. There were some really good things this year. Things like the release of my first novel, getting into the Epic Fantasy Storybundle, my Monster Hunter Files story being well received. There have been a a lot of really great things this year for me as an author. But what I mostly remember about this year was my failure to accomplish my main goal — take better care of myself.

I won’t go into a tale of personal woe. The short of it is that this year did not go as planned and it was all around much harder to find the time and energy to get anything done that I wanted or needed to. I think the only thing that did go as planned was that I learned how to use Dragon and that with my acupuncturist’s help my arthritis pain is the lowest it’s been in years. Too bad the rest of my life isn’t falling into line. But there is still hope for next year. Onward and upward, right?