It’s that time again… even if it is couple days late! ?
Welcome back to my adventures in indie-ing 2019!
(and this week, I’m not going to continue spouting off the praises for The ONE Thing book… I have a different one for you this time ?)
So, let’s get started – for those new folks, each week in 2019 I’ll be adding a new installment of my own personal indie-author adventures… what works, what doesn’t… and hopefully share some helpful and useful tidbits in the process.
This Past Week
I won’t go into all the ins-and-outs of the struggle for balance – we touched on it last week… and frankly, I’ve concluded that is pretty much a constant for indie-authors. But, it did show itself in it’s glory again this past week! Phew…
So, for those who don’t know, I’ve spent over 20-years in tech, most of that in programming, web development, and web design. I run a tech-for-authors company, Author’s Mojo, as well as my own writing career, and I’m the tech-coach for authors in the Author Boss Academy.
(not to mention I’m also a single mom, 100% self-employed, and my house-cleaning-fairy seemed to have left ages ago and hasn’t come back…. oh, and those pesky chronic illness issues tend to factor in at times, too ?)
I have a new (hopefully super-awesome) product I’m getting ready to launch with Author’s Mojo which I think will help indie authors tremendously. I’m beyond stoked and excited for it!! I can’t wait to share it with everyone — but, it also requires a lot of techie work on the back end to get it up, running, and most importantly – right – before I do.
Needless to say, this past week, I’ve written all of about 800 words.
/sigh/
The struggle is real, folks… but don’t mistake me, I absolutely love what I do. Truly. I’d never be able to keep up the pace of it all otherwise!
But – on the flipside of that, because I LOVE helping indie-authors, it becomes very easy for me to start working at 7am, then I look up and it’s 5pm… not so good from a self-care perspective.
Progress… Not Perfection
I’m going to share a tidbit of wisdom I told a friend of mine once… (and you have to be a little bit “country” to fully understand the reference here I’d wager LOL).
Perfection is like a greased pig. You’ll chase it around, flailing, falling in the mud a time or two
… and you may even catch it. BUT… you can’t hold onto it for more than a moment.
Some say perfection doesn’t exist. I disagree.
It does exist… but it isn’t a destination. It isn’t a “state of being to attain”. It is a fleeting, brief, flash of a moment… and then poof!
Gone.
Yep… just like that.
What does that have to do with my past week & balance?
I’m glad you asked! ?
Even the smallest, tiniest, baby-step that is progress in your author career is progress. It may not be the massive, gigantuan, “I’m suddenly a best-seller” leap of progress you would like… but even those “measly” 800 words I wrote are still progress. Still puts me closer to my long-term author career goals. 800 words closer to my next published book.
And we cannot minimize how BIG that is… even if it’s small.
I want to give a quick, shout-out thank you to all of you for this series here for a second… why? Because you are helping keep me accountable for doing these posts every single week… AND… it’s forcing me to step back and look at my author businesses and be more strategic about growing them AND keeping them aligned with what resonates with my soul.
(plus, it’s nice reminder that I actually DID get something done in the previous week, even if it doesn’t always feel like it!) ?
What I Accomplished
- Business meeting
- Client book formatting jobs (3 of them!)
- Begin process of migrating all of my websites to a new server (yes, I have a stupid amount of “my own” websites in addition to author-customer websites!)
- Doc appointments
- Author mentoring & coaching live call
- ~800 words written
- Finalized a book cover for my WIP
- Created a brand new author-tech product/service and completed *most* of the backend coding to manage and promote
- Attended writing class with the awesome writing coach / editor Carol May Vaughn
- Read an INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, BUSINESS-ALTERING book by Russell Nohelty (which I’ll talk more about in next week’s installment)
- Argued with myself repeatedly about investing a chunk of money into my author business – my better, smarter self won out and we made the investment ??
- And somehow managed to keep all the humans and animals in my home happy, healthy, fed, clean, and more-or-less taken care of! LOL… though I am several piles of laundry behind… but hey, can’t do it all! ?♀️
Big Takeaway
Progress – not perfection. Remember, perfection is a greased pig… you may grab it for a moment, but then … poof! And be kind to yourself… you are doing SO MUCH BETTER than you give yourself credit for! ❤
[bctt tweet=”Even the smallest, tiniest, baby-step that is progress in your author career is progress. And we cannot minimize how BIG that is… even if it’s small.”]