Hey there & welcome back to this fifth installment of my 2019 adventures in indie-ing! ?
For those just tuning in, each week in 2019 I’m going to be posting the good, the bad, the ugly (hopefully more good than ugly!) in my journey as an indie author… AND hopefully some tidbits that will help others along the way.
This Past Week
So, last week I completely overhauled my writing and publishing schedule for 2019. The original plan I’d put together felt ‘off’ somehow, and after reading The One Thing and putting those ideas into action – I figured it out and now, I’m MUCH happier with my pub schedule for the year.
The big takeaway from last week was if it feels off… listen (and then figure out why!). One of my goals for this year is to listen to my gut, since, let’s face it, our guts are usually spot on, so it was nice to get that reminder to listen this early in the year! ?
What immediately happened from listening to my gut and revamping my schedule…. BOOM! My muse was happy and back in business, and the words & ideas started flowing again! (phew!)
Now, of course, sometimes our muse can be impatient and tries to give us too many ideas — well, not too many, really, but gives them to us so quickly that we just can’t quite keep up. I mean, c’mon, we can only write so fast! sheesh! lol
But you know… I’m okay with that. I write using Scrivener for most of my projects. What I do when I have that new shiny idea that I would
love to start chasing — I start a new Scrivener project for my shiny new idea, I brain dump all of the thoughts I have about it (rough, not pretty, just word-barf all of it into the project), save it, and move back to what I was doing.
I have to do it that way… (1) If I didn’t, I’d never finish anything from chasing new story ideas, and (2) I don’t want to lose what seems like awesomely great ideas!
I’m working, I’m inspired, ideas and words are flowing, and…. SCREECH! BAM! CRASH!
I Forgot Something Very Important…
I somehow had forgotten that I’m not super-woman, and that I am actually only human.
More than that, I was so fired up and motivated, getting things done that I had momentarily forgot that sometimes my health doesn’t always cooperate. ??
Like millions of others, I’m one of those who has to deal with and manage an “invisible” illness. Several of them, actually.
Fibromyalgia can be a real bitch – I’ll just say it. But when you marry that up with some fairly serious back issues such as bone spurs on multiple vertebrae, multiple bulging discs, and the more serious spinal stenosis… well, there are some days that takes the wind right out of my sails regardless of how motivated or inspired I am.
Simply put, I tried to do too much, and managed to wear myself out and overdo it just a wee bit. ? It happens… not the first time, and I’m quite certain it won’t be the last! (mostly because I’m too stubborn to slow down sometimes – even when I know I should.)
But, even with that… I still managed to accomplish a fair bit this week, so I’ll still put it down in the ‘win’ column.
What I Accomplished
- Updates on websites for three separate author clients
- A hands-on masterclass workshop for authors
- A short Facebook Live doing a writing software overview
- An author’s coaching & mentoring live call
- 20,000 words written
- 2 new awesome and fun-sounding book ideas (fiction)
- Super-secret-squirrel website work (I’m under an NDA – so no spoilers here)
- Began another books-inspired website which should be up and running in a month or so
- Added approx 100 new peeps to my mailing list
So, while I fell ill toward the end of the week and over this weekend, it is nice to remind myself of how much I DID accomplish… and remind myself that every bit of progress forward, no matter how small, is exactly that… progress forward!
Big Takeaway
[bctt tweet=”Self-care isn’t just a fad or a luxury… if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t hit the goals you’re aiming for. Slow down, take some rest – your muse & your body – will thank you. ~Morigan~”]