Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 38

Letting Go of Busy Work does A Lot of Good

I have now officially dissolved the LLC in every way except in one area. This morning, as I filed the final paperwork for closing the LLC in the state I live in, I realized I felt wonderful. I had no idea that carrying around the LLC (something I felt obligated to have since it was the thing “smart” authors did) was weighing me down. Suddenly, writing wasn’t fun. It was a business. And because it was a business, there was the burden of making a certain income to justify what I was doing.

This morning, it occurred to me all of that nonsense is gone. Removing the LLC has been the best thing I could have done to save my creativity. And I decided that from this point forward, if I don’t want to do something, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to do stuff I want to do.

And that brings me to the actual topic of this post:

Sometimes you have to let things go.
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ID 126911544 © Artur Szczybylo | Dreamstime.com

I realize there are some areas in a person’s life that they can’t remove. Obviously, you have to work to put food on the table, you have to pay taxes, you have to take care of a sick child in the middle of the night, you have to keep your house clean, etc. This is just part of the human experience.

But there are things you can remove from your life to make things easier. I don’t know if it’s because I’m now in my forties (so I have some experience under my belt), but a lot of stuff people often do are things they feel obligated to do. They aren’t things they have to do. They’re things others have imposed upon them.

I think we’ve all been there. You know the task ahead of you is optional, but you can’t bring yourself to say no because someone else expects you to do it, and you’re afraid if you don’t do it, then the person will get upset with you. Sometimes you do things to keep the peace. The older I get, the less inclined I am to keep doing those activities. I think as you get older, you realize your time is getting more and more precious because people only live for so long. The older you get, the less years you’re likely to have. So you start to choose your activities more carefully.

This is why I decided to only write stories I’m most excited about writing. This is why I’m cutting back on how many books I write at a time so I have time to do other things I love (such as walking 45-60 minutes 5 days a week) and spending time with my husband and kids. This is why I cut the email list. This is why I cut the LLC. I no longer have time for the hamster wheel that is a “successful” author’s life. I’m tired of chasing after marketing schemes that usually don’t yield more sales. Most of the time, they only end up wasting time.

Remember in school when your teacher handed you assignments to fill out that was busy work? You knew there wasn’t a point to the assignments. You could tell the difference between working on something that advanced your education and something that didn’t. In real life, we end up filling our days with the same kind of busy work. They’re really distractions. They don’t move you toward your goals. But they seem so urgent at the moment that we put stuff that do advance our goals further down the list. Then by the time we can get to those activities that get us closer to our goals, we’re usually too exhausted for the day. We tell ourselves, we’ll do those things tomorrow. If we’re not careful, tomorrow gets sucked up in busy work, too.

I’m looking at everything I’m doing and asking myself, “Is this busy work? Or is this going to get me closer to my goals?”

The email list, to be honest, was busy work. I was spending one week working on a special epilogue to go with each new release, and I was making this exclusive to my email list or people in my closed Facebook group. Well, after having this email list since 2015, I realized that over the years, more people were unsubscribing than they were subscribing. Also, less and less people were even opening the email to read the 1500-2500 words I spent agonizing over for a week. The reason is was so hard for me to write those scenes is because the book was done. When the book is done, I can’t think of anything to add to it. It was busy work. Very few people were interested. So why was I spending so much time doing something I dreaded?

This is the kind of busy work that needs to be removed from our lives. Life is short. Why make yourself miserable doing something because you feel like you have to do it? If the activity is optional, let it go. Spend that time doing something you enjoy.

In case you think letting go of this stuff is easy, it’s not. It’s hard. I’ve been wanting to get rid of the email list and my LLC for two years, but I was afraid to do it because I was going to let someone down. So I kept pushing myself to go on, and in the end, I started to dread what was coming. I was frustrated. Sometimes I was angry at myself for not having the courage to say no, but mostly, I was frustrated.

By letting go of things that aren’t working, I found a new sense of freedom. And in the freedom is a huge sense of relief. I’m no longer on the hook to do busy work. I can spend that time doing something I love instead. It’s amazing what a difference this has been making.

Now, I don’t know what your “busy work” is, but I know it won’t be easy to give it up. It’s taking me two years to finally give mine up. The first step is the realizing this thing isn’t working for you. Then you have to let the process work itself out because I do believe this is a process. I don’t think anyone can snap their fingers and just walk away from something that has become a habit. I heard once that success is not a straight line. It’s a lot of twists and turns. It’s a process.

I also think the more tuned into other people’s feelings you are, the harder it is to do. I’m very conscious of other people’s emotions. I hate to upset anyone. And this has made it harder to make certain decisions along the way. You have to fight the urge to feel guilty for not meeting someone’s expectations. But I guess you have to look at it this way: if you can’t give 100% of yourself to something, then are you really doing other people a favor? I mean, I could keep writing those special scenes, but if I hate doing them, that will reflect in the work. And in the end, the lack of quality is going to disappoint people anyway.

For a personal experience, my deaf kid wanted to stay after school to do some activities with his peers, but that would require me to drive down to pick him up every day. That totaled about one hour five days a week, and I would have to pick him up around 5:30. I get up at 4 in the morning so that I can get ready for the day. I like having an hour in the morning to be shower and then spend time in silence to get mentally ready for the day. After that, it’s hectic around the house. I have four kids and a husband. Getting everyone ready for school and work is a lot of work. I like to wind down at night, and I like to be in bed between 5:30-6. I don’t go to sleep right away, but I have found this wind down time goes a long way to renewing my energy and getting a solid, good night’s sleep. I’m an introvert, and introverts lose energy when they’re around people. They need time alone to build the energy back up. This makes me much more productive during the day. I’m also a much happier person to be around. So I had to say no to picking up the kid after school every day. Instead, I compromised on picking him up two days a week. I can manage that. But doing it five days would have exhausted me.

So that’s what I mean by busy work and cutting it from your life. Obviously, you can’t get rid of everything you don’t like doing, but there are some areas that you can release. Letting those things go has a surprising way of making life more positive. I don’t know if anyone found this motivational, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to write the post.

Quitting the Email List

In dissolving the LLC, I am going to have to go through every book and take out the LLC information from the interior file. (The covers will stay the same.) Anyway, I have 85 books (some under a pen name) to go through. At the end of most of my books is a link to sign-up form to my email list.

I’ve been doing this list since 2015, and to be honest, I’m burned out from it. I have wanted to get rid of it for about a year. Getting rid of the LLC is proving to be a time when I can start fresh. So this is one of the things I’m going to leave in the past. Therefore, I’m removing the sign-up to my email list information at the end of my books.

I still plan to be online. I’ll still make posts in this blog since I continue to get enjoyment from it.

There are also other places you can find me if you wish.

I’m on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruthannnordin

I have a Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/830058207023257/

I have a Facebook Author Page at: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRuthAnnNordin/

I’m on MeWe: https://mewe.com/profile/5bc60c4da5f4e53ee03fafed

I’m on Twitter: @authornordin

I have also have a blog that gives monthly updates on what I’m doing: https://ruthannnordinnewsletter.com

I’m most active on Facebook and this blog. I plan to spend more time on MeWe once I get all of my books updated and re-published.

This transition is going to take a couple of months. I have to go through 85 books and see what needs updating. Then I have to republish the updated versions on Amazon, Google Play, and Smashwords (which will deliver them to B&N, Kobo, Apple, and smaller retailers Smashwords is affiliated with). This is going to be a long and slow process. I can’t do it all at once.

Please be patient with me.

External Vs. Internal Rewards

I finally made the decision to close my business. I’m not sure how many of you are aware of LLCs, but years ago, I was told an LLC was a good idea for a writer. For possible tax savings, it can be, but you have to make a certain amount in order for it to make sense. If any writers out there have questions about LLCs, feel free to ask. I set mine up in 2013 and am now dissolving (aka closing) it. So I can answer some questions about this.

Overall, I found the LLC to be more of a pain than it was worth. I was set up as an LLC but was taxed as an S-Corporation, which meant I had to run payroll. I hired out for payroll. And I have an accountant who works with small businesses. I plan to keep the accountant. There’s no way I want to deal with filing my own taxes. I’m not that type of person. All I really want to do is write.

Anyway, for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be running all over the place getting things wrapped up with the LLC, so I’m not sure how much I can come over here. I’m also participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal of NaNoWriMo is to reach 50,000 words during the month. It’s a fun challenge, and right now, I want to use the spare time I’ll have to do something fun with my time.

I’m looking forward to getting out of the LLC. Something happens when a writer starts thinking of writing as a business. The focus gets off of the internal reward for writing. Instead, the focus goes to external rewards. I’ve learned internal rewards are not compatible with external rewards.

Internal rewards come from the satisfaction of doing something you love. It is not reliant on any other factors. It is writing for the sake of writing. It is the only thing under a writer’s control. External rewards depend on factors outside of a writer’s control. It is about awards, making bestselling lists, sales, and money. It all depends on what others do.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about the difference between internal and external rewards, and I’ve decided I’d rather have the internal kind. It is HARD to get back into the mindset of writing for that internal reward that came so easily to me in the past because as soon as I realized external rewards existed, I felt like I had to earn a certain amount of money in order to be “somebody” in the writing community.

Suddenly, it was about proving myself to other writers because no one really cares about what a writer has to say unless the writer has proved him/herself through income, a bestseller’s list, and/or an award. That’s why those things matter so much to a lot of writers. The LLC only reminds me of that. It forces me into the mindset of being a “business”. I’m sure it doesn’t do that to all writers, but it did it to me because I had to worry about making a certain amount of money in order to keep running the LLC.

I want to be happy. I’ve been reading a book about being happy, and as simple as this sounds, the author is right: I have to be happy first. And in order to be happy, it’s important to be content with what I already have. When I look at my life, I realize I have it good. All of my needs are met. I’m fortunate. Looking at what I don’t have is exhausting, and it drains me of my passion for writing.

This is why I think writing to market is doomed to fail in the longterm. I’ve heard writers say they’re happy writing to market since the money is so good, but money is an external reward. In the end, I don’t see how it can satisfy, and I also don’t see how a writer is going to be satisfied with their books if they write it for other people. (Another external reward is approval from others. This can come in the form of praise, sales, or awards.) What I’ve discovered over the past few years of chasing external rewards is that there is no amount that is enough. There’s always more to gain. And that only frustrated me. It didn’t make me happy. I actually began to hate writing, and there were a few times when I thought I never wanted to write another word again. That scared me. And then I wanted to cry because, deep down, I knew I wanted to write. I had just lost my way. I had lost my joy.

The writers who have embraced writing for internal rewards are happy. I’ve come across them, and you can tell they’re happy by the way they talk. Also, their stories have a passion in them that comes through their writing. You can tell they put their hearts into the stories, and you can tell they had fun while writing them. They started self-publishing when I did, and they’re still writing with the same enthusiasm they used to.

I know this isn’t something that the world embraces. The world is geared toward external rewards. People are praised, admired, and respected for external rewards. Does that mean a writer who focuses on internal rewards can’t make money with their books? No. I learned long ago to never say “never”, but the writer isn’t going to be happy if money is the goal. Money is a gift, and it should be appreciated. But it shouldn’t be the goal. Once it becomes the goal, it taints the way a writer views writing.

External rewards taints the way you do anything. In the final analysis, internal rewards gives you longterm fulfillment and joy.

If you’re curious about the book I’m reading, here’s a link to the site where you can find more information about it. If you’re struggling with being fulfilled (like I am), I recommend it. This is one of those books you’ll want to read more than once, and I do think it takes time to let the lessons really sink in. The author did address the difference between internal and external rewards. (This was under the section about success.) Anyway, it was while I was reading that passage in the DMV line that things fell into place for me, which is why I focused on that specific principle in this blog post. (For those who might not know, DMV stands for Department of Motor Vehicles. The line can be long and slow. It’s worth taking a book if you ever have to go there.)

For Those of You Who Want Clean Romances, Here Are Some Authors You Might Enjoy

I’m going to send you to a couple of romance authors I personally know who write clean romances. These are fine Christian romance authors who are super sweet people.

Historical western romances:

Check out Janet Syas Nitsick.

I actually do have one historical romance that is clean. It’s Romancing Adrienne, and it can be found on this page. (It’s Book 4 in the series.) Just link to the retailer you’re interested in.

For contemporary romances:

Check out Catherine Lynn.

Check out Kristy K. James.

Check out Dorothy Paula.

I do have one clean contemporary romance that I wrote in an anthology under the pen name Barbara Joan Russell. It can be found on this page. Look for the book titled Bride by Design. Click the link to where you want to buy it.

For historical or contemporary:

Kristen Osbourne has some clean historicals and contemporary romances. Read the descriptions to make sure they’re clean.

Also, It’s my understanding that Catherine Lynn and Kristy K. James are looking into writing some historicals. (I just checked, and Kristy does have a historical already out.)

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That all said…

I am going to keep putting sex into my romances. I don’t write clean romances because there are SO MANY already out there. There’s more supply than there is demand. You can go to any retailer right now and find a ton of them. You’ll never run out of clean romances to read. Seriously, you won’t.

However, there are very few romances available where the author has made this promise about every single book: the hero and heroine do not have sex with each other until after marriage. I can find an author who does this setup for a few books, but then they have other books where the hero and heroine have sex before marriage. So I never know what I’m getting when I pick up that author’s book.

But I do make that promise about my books, and I am going to keep true to that promise. The only two other authors I know of who are doing this are Rose Gordon and Carolyn Davidson. I am helping to fill a void that exists in the romance market. This is the beauty of self-publishing. I get to write books that very few others are doing.

And some people have told me they’re glad I write sex within marriage. Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was when I found out I wasn’t the only romance reader who got frustrated in searching for an author who kept sex within marriage for every single book they wrote. I thought I was the only romance reader alive who wanted the hero and heroine to wait until marriage to have sex. The reason I started writing romances was because I couldn’t find the kind of romances I was looking for.

I also wanted more virgin heroes. Man, I can’t tell you how tired I was of finding so many sexually experienced heroes in romances. Like magic, he falls in love with the heroine and changes his ways. Never mind the other women he had gone through in the past. It’s like those women never mattered. And that always bothered me. That’s why if I do have a hero who isn’t a virgin AND isn’t a widower or was forced into a divorce, I make sure to show that the hero’s past sexual pursuits weren’t fun. I give him guilt. He has to realize he used those women for his own selfish pleasure. It was never love. It was lust. I don’t see how any man can use women and feel good about himself in the long run, at least not if he has a conscience.

I’m going to keep putting sex into my books, and I will keep describing the act. In a good marriage, the act of lovemaking brings the couple closer together. That’s all I do in my books when I include sex scenes. I’m showing how they grow closer together. I have a lot of respect for the sex act. I find it beautiful and pure. And that’s how I see it when I write about it.

I understand not everyone will agree with me. And that’s why I listed the authors above. Please, if you’re looking for clean romances, check them out. If you want clean romances, I’m not the author for you. If you pick up another one of my books, you’ll be disappointed, and I want to save you that disappointment.

From now on, if someone asks me about writing clean romances, I’ll just point them to the authors I mentioned above.

Signs of a Heart Attack in Women

I had a request to write on this topic, and I’m finally getting around to it. I’ve never been through this, so I’m not an expert. I have to take what I learned from the internet and from what someone told me her experience was like.

From what I learned, it is hard to tell if a woman is having a heart attack. It seems that the signs are easier to recognize when it happens to men, although my husband’s co-worker went home a month ago complaining about a pain in his arm and died that night from a heart attack. He didn’t think he was having a heart attack, and no one else did, either.

In a nutshell, here is what to watch for:

Unexpected Fatigue that leaves you with no energy at all. They say you have trouble even walking to the bathroom.
Shortness of breath while at rest.
Sweating while at rest.
Waking up in the middle of the night and feeling as if you can’t catch your breath.
Upset stomach; sometimes vomiting.
It feels as if an elephant is sitting on your chest.
Heartburn that doesn’t go away with something like Tums or sitting up.
Pain in neck, upper arms, and/or jaw.
Heartbeat gets unexpectedly fast.
Chest pain.

From what I gathered, this stuff can go on for weeks or months before the actual heart attack hits full force, and women don’t experience all of these symptoms. So it’s no wonder that this is a very hard thing to figure out. I honestly don’t know how a woman is supposed to know if they’re having a heart attack. The woman I know who had one said that she had heartburn that went on and on even though she took Tums. She said she couldn’t sleep since it was so bad.

My concern is that if you’re having one or two of the symptoms listed above, will it be obvious to a doctor if you go in and mention having those symptoms? My mother-in-law had an eruption in her intestine and the doctors kept saying it was a stomach bug. She almost died because they couldn’t figure out that was going on. Now, I can’t really blame doctors for not figuring that out. She had stomach bug symptoms. Doctors do their best to provide quality care and try to get things right. But we are all human.

So given the list for all of the symptoms that can signal a heart attack in women, I don’t know how a woman is supposed to figure out what is really going on when any of these symptoms can pop up so often over the course of our lifetime.

I guess the extreme fatigue and shortness of breath or sudden burst of sweating would signal something to me that I need to sit up and pay attention, but I’ve had all of the other things happen at one time or another in the course of my lifetime. Also, I’ve been battling a sensitive stomach since I was in my early 20s.

From all of this, I’m thinking a heart attack is probably one of the most difficult things to pin down. Maybe the main thing is that the symptoms linger for longer than normal. Maybe it’s that things are getting worse instead of better. Or maybe we have to rely on the gut instinct that tells us something is seriously wrong.

What about you? Have you come across anyone who’s had a heart attack? What were the symptoms?

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Here are the resources I’m pulled together for this post:

Important Heart Attack Red Flags For Women You Should Recognize

Women: Don’t Ignore These 3 Subtle Heart Attack Symptoms

6 Symptoms of Women’s Heart Attacks

 

October 2018 Newsletter

I’m sorry I’m late in writing this post this month. I’m not going to have anything out until January. For those who already know, I won’t go over the details again, but for those who don’t know, I had to go through adjust my entire writing schedule. I’m done with trying to hurry up and get another book out. The rat race isn’t for me. I’m slowing down my schedule.

So with that stated, I’ll proceed with what I’m currently working on.

One Enchanted Evening is still being edited.

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Marriage by Fairytale Series

Book 1: The Marriage Contract
Book 2: One Enchanted Evening
Book 3: The Wedding Pact
(more may or may not be coming)

I decided to push back the release date on this book to January 6. I’ve decided from now on, I’m not going to put anything out from October to December. These months are centered on different holidays (at least they are in the United States where I live), so I’d rather people focus on their family and friends during this time.

The Imperfect Husband (Book 4) is a little over halfway done.

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Misled Mail Order Brides Series

Book 1: The Bride Price
Book 2: The Rejected Groom
Book 3: The Perfect Wife
Book 4: The Imperfect Husband

I had to slow down in this one in order to figure out how to best resolve the issues between Tony and Mark that were started in Book 2 (The Rejected Groom). I have rewritten portions of these scenes as the book progresses because there are things that pop up that I need to go back and adjust. With the exception of The Rejected Groom, every book in this series has been difficult to write. I have books that pop up like that from time to time, but it’s rare it happens with almost the entire series. Wagon Trail Bride (one of my favorites) was so difficult to write, it took me a couple of years to finally get it done. Some books are just harder to write than others. Those are best put off until the time is right.

Shane’s Deal is nearing the halfway point.

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Montana Collection

Book 1: Mitch’s Win
Book 2: Boaz’s Wager
Book 3: Patty’s Gamble
Book 4: Shane’s Deal

This was supposed to be a novella. I originally planned on making this a 20,000 to 30,000 word book. I’m at 26,000 words, and there’s a lot more to go. So it’s going to be a full-length novel. This one will go to my publisher when it’s done.

Kidnapping the Viscount is about 1/3 of the way done.

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Marriage by Fate Series

Book 1: The Reclusive Earl
Book 2: Married In Haste
Book 3: Make Believe Bride
Book 4: The Perfect Duke
Book 5: Kidnapping the Viscount

I’m at the point where the heroine has successfully kidnapped the hero. He helped her with it, though she doesn’t realize it. At its core, this is a comedy.

I have a Young Adult Thriller I’m working on under a pen name.

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Since some people have expressed an interest in it, I’ll mention it here. I’m about 80% of the way into it. This is going to be around 35,000 words, which makes it a novella. I can’t seem to make a novella from a romance, but I can manage it for a YA Thriller.

This particular book is about a teen girl who witnessed the murder of her classmate, and now the killer is out to get her. I’ll post more information later.

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That’s all for now. I hope everyone has a great October!

 

 

 

 

 

Old Habits Are Hard To Break (But Not Impossible)

When I made the announcement that I was going to go back to writing for passion and that I wasn’t going to stress over having a new book out all the time, I had no idea it was going to take months to fully embrace the new direction in my writing life. The greatest battle we face really is in the mind.

By changing my path, I was essentially letting go of a dream. But that’s okay. I’m a firm believer that when God closes a door, He opens a window. Sometimes He’ll put me at the end of my rope, so I can see where He’s leading me. I’ve always been the kind of person who doesn’t get a hint. People need to come out and tell me exactly what they want. I think my husband is a lot better at picking out subtleties than I am. I guess that’s why this writing to passion thing (and everything that would follow in line after it) has been harder to properly embrace.

After taking the advice of the author who made the two You Tube videos I included in the last post, I gave myself permission to do things I haven’t allowed in a long time. For example, I didn’t feel like writing on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I felt like walking. So I got off the computer and went on the treadmill for two hours. Then I didn’t write after that like I normally would. I’m now stopping writing when I no longer feel like doing it. My word count average has gone from 3500 (when I was pushing myself) to 2000. And now I’m doing about 3-4 days a week instead of the full 5.

I don’t know what the future of publishing looks like. Things are so different now than they were when I put my books on Amazon and Smashwords in 2009. Now it’s a pay-to-play game. If you don’t have the money to put into ads or other ways to get exposure, it’s hard to get visibility. I’m not complaining about it. I’m just being realistic. The landscape isn’t what it used to be. It doesn’t do anyone any good to live in denial.

Since things have changed, old habits need to change, too. I’m still learning what those changes are for me. I’m not interested in playing the pay-to-play game. I’m not interested in writing novellas in order to get something out every month. (I did consider it. I even started a story that was meant to be a novella, and it’s already at 26,000 words with a lot more to go.) I am interested in doing a short story here and there for fun, but I don’t want to do that all the time. I’m not interested in spending most of my time on social media because, as an introvert, that drains me. I can only handle social media in small doses. That’s one of the reasons I don’t email right away. I need time to recharge my batteries.

All I really want to do is write and publish my books. That’s it. So that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t know how often a new book will be out. I plan to push back at least one pre-order date as we get later into the year since I’m not going to strain myself to get the book written by a certain time. If the day comes when I feel like God is telling me to stop writing, I’ll stop. I don’t feel He’s leading me that way at this time. I’m going to leave the details up to Him. I don’t know what’s beyond the window He opened for me, but I’m going to find out because I’m no longer going to try to open the door that’s closed.

Shifting Things Around

The past couple of weeks have been a busy time as I tried to rearrange my goals and writing schedule to accommodate them. The other day, I got links from a good author friend on two excellent videos.

1. This is a good one on focusing in on goals in a way that won’t get overwhelming. It’s aimed at writers, but honestly, it could work for any goals.

2. The other video was on handling burnout. Again, it’s primarily aimed at writers, but I can see how the symptoms of burnout and ways to overcome it could work for other areas, too. Writers aren’t the only ones who get burned out.

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I took both videos to heart and worked on how I can best modify things I have control over. Trying to work with things I can’t control is pointless. This is what I’ve been trying to do for the past 2.5 years, and it hasn’t worked. So now I’m working with goals I do have control over.

Regarding the 90 Day Plan:

Now, the author in the videos does a board. I like having something printed out in paper form that I created in my Word program. I like being able to cross things out as I finish them. I know an author who likes putting everything in a planner.

The bottom line is to use whatever method best motivates you. Seeing stuff on a board and moving them around wouldn’t motivate me. Also, I don’t like to list out every little thing on a sticky note. I like to have everything on one sheet of paper that I can glance at. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed. So this is a flexible plan.

If anyone’s interested, these are the three things I came up with for my 90 Day Plan.

Things I’ve decided to change in how I do things. I’m hoping these will help eliminate burnout and renew my focus on writing for passion.

I log in to work on writing, publishing, and/or marketing Monday through Friday from 8am to 2pm. Wednesdays will end at 1pm due to kids’ early out from school. (Note: I do household chores during this time, too.) Once the 1-2pm mark hits, I quit no matter how much I did or didn’t do.
Once You’re Next (my YA thriller under my pen name) is done, I’m going back to working on three books at a time. I’m also lowering my word count per book.
At least three days a week, I will write 250 – 1000 words in each the book for the day. I was making myself do 3,000 words total Monday through Friday. That seemed to be pushing myself too hard.
Monday through Friday, I walk for 30-60 minutes on the treadmill. (I finally broke down and bought one since it’s cold in Montana too many months in the year.)
Saturday and Sunday is for other activities. It’s time I got back to reading more and doing other hobbies I haven’t done in ages.

Regarding my publishing schedule:

I want to be three months ahead of schedule. Part of  my problem is that I’ve been writing, editing, and publishing as quickly as I could. I published back all of my pre-order dates so far out that I hope to be able to have every book done three months before I publish it. That way, I hope to be more relaxed about things.
I will no longer put up pre-orders until I finish the book. I’ve finally learned my lesson on this one. Pre-orders are nice in that they give me time to put all of my ducks in a row, so to speak.
I’m not going to stress how often I publish books. When they’re done, they’ll get ready for publication.
I’m also only taking on stories I want to write. I’m hoping this will get me out of the writing to market mindset.

One final thought on the You Tube video on avoiding burnout that I think is important to mention:

The author made an excellent point that when setting goals, one of the best things to aim for is how you want to feel. I’d never thought of things that way before. How I feel is something I can control. It’s something we can all control. The idea is to think of how you want to feel and then take the steps necessary to get there.

For example, my goal is to feel relaxed while writing. Since publishing eight books in 2019 would stress me out, I lower the number to six books. I can comfortably do six books that range between 50,000 to 70,000 words. I’m not focused on how the books will sell, who’ll like them, or anything else I can’t control. I’m just focused on the thing I can do: write.

I don’t know if something in this post can help, but I figured I’d pass this along in case something in here will work for you. I think part of living a hectic life is trying to figure out a way to best organize our time so we don’t stress ourselves out, whether we’re writing or doing something else.

 

 

The Road to Passionate Writing isn’t Linear

Note: This is another “write to market” post. If you don’t want to read it, skip this one.

Real life story that does lead into the theme of this post:

Yesterday morning, I woke up and discovered mold that had been sitting along the hallway wall for months. (The bathroom shower is on the other side of this hallway wall.) I have no idea how long it was sitting there, quietly growing and spreading. It was hidden by some shoes and some towels. (We had shelves that were on this wall. Needless to say, those shelves are gone now.) I called a handyman I know, and he tore into the wall so we could see how much damage we were looking at. In short, we’re going to need to remove the entire wall and put in a new shower. If anyone wonders, the way to kill mold is by bleach. But this wall was too far gone. There was no saving it, and the shower and tub were a part of the damages in this whole thing.

So here’s how this ties into theme of the post:

Sometimes there’s something wrong within us, and, like mold, it quietly works in the dark. It’s often something that is at work for a long period of time, which makes us unaware that it’s even there. This morning as I was spraying bleach to kill off any remaining mold, it occurred to me that the problem I’ve been experiencing with my writing has been bothering me since last August 2017 (yes, I mean 2017). I know it was that month because it was the first time I got completely wiped out, and I’ve been limping along ever since. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Last week, I actually contacted a couple of close author friends and confessed I was seriously consider quitting. This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve been on Amazon and Smashwords since 2009. There have been other times when I’ve wanted to throw in the towel and give up. It’s not easy being a writer. I bet it’s not easy being anyone who is creating something.

When you create something, a lot of people find ways to criticize it. There is no story that pleases everybody. That is an impossible mission. That’s why I don’t believe in revising a story to death. No matter how much you go through a story, it’ll never be perfect. On the flip side, you do want to write the best story you possibly can. You don’t want to rush through the story and throw it out there.

The rushing part is what I’ve been guilty of for the past 2.5 years. I bought into the “hurry up and get another book out” mindset in my pursuit to keep making the same amount of money I did back in 2015. I realized I could no longer take my time writing a book and expect to make the same amount of money I was up to that point.  I know a lot of it has to do with the supply of books going up. Authors who started out in 2009-2011 like I did were used to taking our time writing books and yielding good results from it. We suddenly found ourselves in the hamster wheel I’ve also discussed on this blog. And a lot of us have been trying to keep up. We also had to learn to write to market in order to appeal to the majority of people, which is another thing I did.

Apparently, just getting out of the wheel wasn’t enough for me. The mold within my own writing life was still there. I feel like I’ve been playing whack-a-mole in nailing down the source of the mold. If I can rip out the mold, I can stop the damage from spreading. My last couple of books pretty much bombed. I only have one book this year that sold decently. Now, I knew the pen name books weren’t going to do well because no one knows who that person is. But my romances had way underperformed, and it did get worse in the summer, which (from what I heard) is the same time frame a lot of other authors got hit with lower-than-average sales. So it wasn’t just me during the summer months.

So then what? Well, authors run to educational resources (books, videos, courses, podcasts) to learn how to improve sales. I’m not immune to any of this. But I found the more I focused on this stuff, the more stressed out I was getting, and I’m sure that helped the mold in myself grow faster. I realize all of these educational resources are there to help authors, and they do have a benefit. However, the advice in these recourses doesn’t work for every author who follows it. I have a really nice author friend who has been writing awesome books this entire time (we started out at the same time), and her sales aren’t what they should be. According to the advice of this latest You Tuber, my author friend should be making $10,000 a month. But I know my friend isn’t making that much, and she’s followed every piece of advice that this You Tuber said she should do.

I’m at the point where I think marketing advice is like throwing spaghetti up on a wall. Maybe it worked for THAT author, but it’s not something that is guaranteed to work. But a lot of other authors will blame the someone like my author friend for not following the advice better. And this contributes to “mold” that builds up within a writer. I know it contributes to my own mold. I can’t control what happens if I do X, Y, or Z. All I can control is the story I write. These marketing people make it sound like authors can control what happens after a story is published, but that’s not true. Authors can try different tactics to get noticed, but we can’t control who is out there buying our work, if they even buy it at all. And that’s a very frustrating and discouraging feeling. If people don’t buy our work, we assume it’s because the story isn’t good. Of course, this isn’t true. I’ve come across a lot of excellent stories that don’t sell well.

Is all of this rambling getting somewhere?

Yes, actually, it is. Last week, I hit rock bottom. For the first time this morning, I saw the “mold” in my own writing life. Some people will say the answer is to stop writing for a while. I thought that at first, too, but writing is not my problem. When I write, I feel a lot better. I did a couple of days off and felt extremely frustrated. I went ahead and wrote, and I felt calm and in control over things again. But, it really does depend on what I’m writing and why I’m writing it.

My problem began when I started writing to market. I was also rushing books out, but it was the writing to market thing that did me in. From 2007-2015, I wrote what I was interested in. That meant I loved every story I was writing. It wasn’t stuff everyone loved. Some people who loved my earlier books said they didn’t like the recent ones, but I loved them. Over these past three years, I’ve only been passionate about a handful of the books I published. I enjoyed every book I wrote, but there’s a difference between enjoying something and being passionate about something. Passion means I want to go back and reread my own books. Enjoyment is okay but not something I care to go back to.

So I had to admit something that’s not easy: I write to a niche market.

The books I’m passionate about are not the same as what the majority of readers out there seem to like. I like to mix a Christian perspective with sex in a marriage relationship. A lot of people don’t like that. They prefer to do one or the other. So authors who want to reach the largest market end up choosing which side to go on. It’s hard for me to find a Christian romance that has love scenes between  husband and wife. This has been true in traditional publishing and indie publishing. Combing both things is not popular. I tried breaking out of the niche by being more secular in my work, but I didn’t feel fulfilled doing that. In fact, I think that’s what God’s will is for me: to write books that glorify Him in and out of the bedroom. I believe sex is a beautiful act between a husband and wife. I don’t think it’s dirty. I’ve been married for 18 years now. I have four children. I still have sex with my husband. I’m not ashamed of it, and I see no reason why my characters should be.

A sex scene isn’t just about sex. Sex is only the physical actions. There are things happening between the characters that are much more than physical. You have emotional completion on an individual level, and you have a spiritual bonding where the two become one. Sex is a very layered event. And it complements what happens outside the bedroom. What happens outside the bedroom is just as important as what happens in it. This is why I added sex scenes to my romances early on. I felt that Christian romances that were clean missed out on the opportunity to show the additional layer within a marital relationship. I still feel that way. I don’t see why a Christian perspective needs to exclude the sexual part of a marital relationship. So I mix the two, and because of that, I will end up upsetting people from both sides of the aisle. Most of the Christian romance crowd isn’t happy with me, and most of the non-Christian romance crowd isn’t happy with me, either. So how can I expect to appeal to the largest audience out there? It’s not realistic.

Looking back on the years I’ve been writing romance, I believe the mold started to develop inside of me when I decided money was more important than doing what God wanted me to do. That’s not easy for me to admit, but how can you solve a problem unless you point out the cause? Like the pipe from the shower in the bathroom, my decision started out as s trickle. Easy to ignore. Not doing a lot of damage. But over time, the leak got bigger and stronger. I think it went full blast in August of 2017. I think that was the point where I could no longer ignore it.

While I was writing to market, I was removing as much of me as possible because I had stopped writing for myself. I think that’s what passion is. Passion is writing the story that has layers and layers of things that mean something to the author who writes it. Writing to market removes those layers because the books are tailored directly to the largest number of readers in a given genre. You can have themes and such, but they are going to be society’s important themes, not an author’s.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of what I mean. I’ve done some books with a spiritual theme in them. Eye of the Beholder is actually about how Christ loves the Church. His love makes the Church beautiful, just as Dave Larson’s love made Mary beautiful. His Redeeming Bride and Loving Eliza both have the spiritual theme of Christ’s love removing all of the sin from a person’s life so that there’s no blemish in them. (In other words, Christ offers another chance in life.) I didn’t set out to put those themes into the books. They just developed. I don’t put in spiritual themes in all of my books. Some books are just supposed to be for fun. Books like “A Bride for Tom” and “The Wrong Husband” are just comedies that were meant to make me laugh. I love a variety of books.

The mold in my life came from fear of putting those themes into my work. They are my themes. They are my interests. Sometimes I want to do something with a spiritual theme, and sometimes I just want to sit back and laugh. Either way, I put pieces of me into everything I was writing. This is why I was passionate about writing them.

Back then, I also wrote the story that most interested me at the time. I didn’t worry about what number I was in for a series. I just wrote the character’s story that I was dying to write. This is why the Nebraska Series was writing out of order. (Eye of the Beholder, Book 4, was the first book written.) The Virginia Series was written out of order, too. (An Inconvenient Marriage was written first, and that’s Book 3.) Everyone seems to want books written in order. So I started forcing myself to write them in order, and I think some of those books were forced before they should have been written. I don’t know if I’ll go back to writing out of order, but if I do, I’m not labeling the books as a series until the whole thing is done. We’ll have to see how things proceed.

I’m going to stop writing books according to other people’s interest. I’m going to only write the ones that interest me the most.  Fortunately, I am interested in the current books I have in progress. The Imperfect Husband is a comedy, but it also has a spiritual theme, “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” In other words, God’s best often comes in ways we don’t expect. We just have to be open to His leading. Kidnapping the Viscount is just a fun comedy. I’m working on both at the same time, and I find the variety helps me stay creative. I’m also working on the YA psychological thriller to give myself a complete break from romance. I’ve always found variety to be the key to staying creative. This is why I don’t focus on one genre all the time like some authors do. I know “smart” authors do that, but that would be the worst thing I could do, especially being as weak as I am at the moment. Mold has a way of weakening things. The wall in the hallway was soft when I was cleaning it with bleach. I felt the wall give under the pressure of my fingers, and I wasn’t even scrubbing. That’s similar to what’s happened with my creativity.

In conclusion:

Removing the mold and putting in the new shower and wall will be a lot easier for the house than removing the source of the mold within my own writing life. I’ve spent the last thirteen months in the middle of a storm where I knew something was wrong but not knowing what it was. What I didn’t realize until this morning was that the last thirteen months have really been a blessing in disguise. I’m finding my way back to the stories I really want to write. One might think this would be easy. I thought so, too, when I dropped out of the rat race earlier this year, but it’s not easy. I have to fight against all of the negative thoughts within myself and the negative comments from others that keep creeping up around me.

So I tell myself to be patient. The mold didn’t get here overnight. It’s not going to go away overnight, either. This is going to be something I’ll struggle with for some time. Progress is not going to be a straight line. But then, the mold that was growing on the wall behind the shower wasn’t linear, either, and it’s requiring the handyman to cut out the entire wall and remove the tub and shower to rip it all out. I am confident that in the end, all of the frustration, pain, and work will be worth it when everything is cleaned up.

Stuff I’m Working On

Quick Note about Google Play

First of all, I got over half of my books up on Google Play now. I have about 20 more to put up there. So things are moving along. I hope to add the Google Play links to the books on my pages where I list out the books by series. For example, here is the page for the Chance at Love Series. Under each book, I list out the retailers and link to them.

Where to Find A Quick Link to All of My Books

You can find all of my books by going directly to the  “My Books” tab at the top of this blog. (It’s under the blog header that has my name and the images of the bride and groom.) If you click on the series you’re interested in, it should take you directly to those books in that series, and the links to those books will be there.

I currently have 80 individual books and two boxed sets completed. Five other books are in pre-order status. (I have a couple of shorts that I didn’t bother linking to. There are seven of those.) If you want the complete list of everything, here’s the link.

This is why I don’t lump all of my books with their links together on one page. It would be too messy. I find it easier to divide them up according to genre and then series, even if there is some overlap between the characters and the series they show up in. I don’t know if it drives people crazy that I’ll bring a character into a different series, but I love doing things this way because I’ll never ever have to say good-bye to them. I get to continue on with their happy endings.

Now for stuff I’m writing…

As of yesterday, I have returned to writing. I had been working on the preliminary edits for One Enchanted Evening before sending it out to my wonderful editing team. I have set the release date for January 6 on that book. I’m planning to dedicate December to doing my publisher duties. Until then, I’m strictly writing, with a little bit of the publishing side since I will be sending out finished stories to my editing team.

The Imperfect Husband is about 1/4 of the way done.

This is Book 4 in the Misled Mail Order Brides Series. (It will complete the series.)

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I just hit Chapter 7 in this one. I’m at the point where Ben is about to meet Annabelle disguised as a woman. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I came up with the main plot for this book. I know I’ve done a woman-dressed-as-a-man book. It played a prominent theme in An Unlikely Place for Love and a minor one in Isaac’s Decision, but I have never had a man disguise himself as a woman. I’ve been wanting to do this setup since I wrote An Unlikely Place for Love in 2008. Sometimes ideas take years (in this case, a decade) to come to fruition. I just need to find the right characters and the right setup to fit it into the plot.

For anyone who is wondering, The stuff with Mark’s lie that he told in The Rejected Groom (Book 2) will finally be resolved in this book. I wasn’t able to resolve it in The Perfect Wife (Book 3) because the dynamics between Mark and Tony just didn’t align right. With Annabelle being the little sister they are both interested in protecting, I can finally address that here. So hang tight. The entire series hasn’t been finished yet. Sometimes it takes a good portion of a series to resolve an issue. This is one such case. One reason I love series is because they allow for character development.

Shane’s Deal is about 1/4 of the way done, too.

This is Book 4 in the Montana Collection. (It will complete the series.)

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Sometimes it takes me years to get to a book I want to write featuring certain characters. This was one of those books. I don’t want to rush any character into a story until that story is ready. I have a few characters I want to write about in the future, but I’m not going to do that until the time is right. Otherwise, the story is going to come off as forced and bland. I’ve started a couple of these, and I had to quit them. If I can’t get excited about the story, then it’s not worth finishing.

I’m really enjoying this story. I started it with the idea it was going to be a 25,000 or 30,000. Well, I just hit 18,700 today, and there’s plenty more to go. These characters have more to their story than a quick read. They have another 30,000 to 40,000 words to go. When the story is done, the characters will let me know, but I can feel this is at least a 50,000 word book.

Kidnapping the Viscount is still in the beginning stages.

This is Book 5 in the Marriage by Fate Series. (It will complete the series.)

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I’m going to wrap things up with the subplot I’ve had going about Lady Eloise and the group (Ladies of Grace). The overall subplot has been the destruction of Lady Eloise. Earlier on, I had intended for Ladies of Grace to fall apart, but then I liked some of the other members of the group (like Miss Webb) and decided to get the group back into good standing. All I need to do a this point is to show how the members of the group override Miss Wilmington’s influence.