Sammantha Anderson's Blog, page 6

Panic Monster

Last week was all about the panic as I come closer to putting all the pieces together for publication. I made it through last week’s panic and now the feeling of accomplishment is setting in with still some panic and fear lingering. This week is a different panic. I am starting to put together an ARC team and I am about to set up the pre-order for Bad Karma, that means the book is finished and ready for others to read. The very thought of someone else reading the book is terrifying. I know I’m a published author it should excite me and make me want to jump for joy. It makes me want to do both.

I have spent months and months preparing this book for publication. It took me five months to write the book. It has been through five edits and countless questions if I did the story justice. There has been panic that I wouldn’t get all my ducks in a row to get this ready and released. I have lost sleep over that fear and the fear that I had failed in telling Savannah’s story.

Now that the moment has come to set up the presale for it, a new fear monster has reared its ugly head. I had no foresight he would come for me or where he came from but there he is. This panic is not the panic that keeps me up at night, instead it sits in the pit of my stomach causing my gut to tighten and nausea to set in. It’s the fear of putting the book out there for everyone in the freaking world to read. There is a moment as I hit submit that I want to throw up. I contemplate running for the bathroom. Then I suck it up and remind myself that this was what I signed up for. That reminder does little to shut the monster in my gut up. He counters with good luck with anyone buying your book. The fear of it all hits me hard and I contemplate pulling the book before it can ever get out for people to read and even if people do; do you really think they will like it? Putting a piece of your soul out for the world to judge is hard.

It makes me wonder why I do this. Why do I share my writing? There is so much panic, fear, and anxiety with the process; why do I torture myself? Am I a masochist? I think, I am a little bit. In fact, I think all writers are a bit of a masochist. It is the only way I can explain why I do this time and time again. It explains why I work as an SSN para and write. Why I get up at four a.m. almost every morning to do everything I do day in and day out. Then, the moment comes and everything becomes clear why I work so hard.

I have three moments that remind me why I work so hard and I share my writing. The first is my kids. How do I tell them to follow their dreams if I am not? How do I explain hard work pays off? Or show them that being them is the best thing in the world. The answer is I work day and night to produce books for others to read. I show them how much I love myself by how hard I work. My kids from time to time whine about my workload. They have the right to. For ten years I was just their mom. I made a decision that turned their lives upside down but they are also seeing that it’s important to follow their dreams. They will one day say look at what their mom has done. Look at what all her hard work has gotten her. They will take that lesson and carry it through their lives. That for me is huge.
The other piece of this hit me Saturday night. I did a live read on Beyond The Read’s Facebook page and there wasn’t a lot of people but the people that were there reminded me why I torture myself like I do. The comments as I read from both Bad Witch Walking and Bad Karma were spectacular. When I read about Whistlers’ death, one said it made her cry when that happened. I loved that because it meant she was just as invested as I was. For the record when I wrote that scene I cried like a baby. I actually had to stop writing because I couldn’t see past my tears. Another said she is excited about the book being released so she could read it. There was a small discussion about which male they love more Damian or Santiago. The fact that all of these individuals are invested in the lives of Savannah, Santiago, and Damian, et al, is exciting. It means I am doing my job as an author. It forces that monster in my gut to back the hell up and it shuts him up for a bit. It makes all of my sacrifices worth it.

The last part is when I get to talk about being an author. I currently have an appointment with a photographer. I felt I needed to update my photo to show me as I am now. I met with the couple who is taking the photos and they were amazing people. We were all on the same journey with weight loss and had a great conversation. I had expected the meeting to last at most twenty minutes. But as we talked they started asking me questions about my books and being a writer. I can talk about both for hours. Being an author is like having fifty people live in your head. They are there all the time and want to get their two cents in. Some are louder than others. Some are creepy (cough Matthew) and give you the heebie-jeebies as you work with them, but they are all there. As we talked about my writing I could see how fascinating it was to them. That makes it worth it for me. That moment where people ask me questions and want to talk to me. They want to understand my process. I love it.

Don’t let those fear, panic, and anxiety monsters inside you stop you from being you. Push past them, show them you will not give them the time of day. Do what you love, no matter how hard it is or how hard you have to work. Everything worth having takes hard work. It is what makes us appreciate our accomplishments. Until next time!

Panic Stricken

Right now as I work on the final edit for Bad Karma and write this blog post I am feeling the crunch to get everything done on time. I have been sick with a cold all week and working my day job, while also editing this past week. The cold I have had has slowed me down a lot in my editing and it is causing me to feel panic as I try to finish everything by my dead lines. The negativity I talked about last week has another side to it. That is what I am experiencing now. It’s the fear of not finishing what I have started. The questions that linger in my brain as I try to sleep. Should I be sleeping now or working? Could I have pushed harder to get more done? Am I making excuses for myself?

Panic is just as bad as negativity. It can make you sloppy in your work because you are rushing to finish your drafting or editing. It can cause you to neglect your other commitments in life. It can cause you to find that personal negativity I talked about last week. It is a slippery slope you start walking as it builds up in your gut. I am going to show you what I mean with the thoughts that have been running through my head for the past week.

It all starts with looking at the calendar and seeing I have a month and a half until my second book releases. I am still completing the final edit. I am starting to see how much better the second book is compared to the first one. I start to question should I re-edit book one before book two launches? I look at my to do list I still need to complete and realize I don’t have all the images for my teasers. I don’t have quotes picked out. I also have set up my first author interview with a blogger for October 20th. What was I thinking? Oh and one more thing I still don’t have my cover art or my new author picture taken. Okay, contact cover artist that will only take two minutes to do. What if she says it won’t be done for another two weeks? My heart is racing a mile a minute to the point that it may just beat out of my chest right now and land on my desk in a bloody mess. Okay, maybe a little dramatic on that last part but that’s what it feels like. My breathing is increasing and I’m not even working out. I am sitting at my desk looking at my to-do list. Maybe I need to get up at three-thirty instead of four? Or maybe skip my work out entirely? The last suggestion, my inner voice says that’s not going to happen. Oh God, I am going to fail! Maybe setting up this interview was the wrong thing to do? Oh and I still have to take my kid to tutoring and karate so that’s lost time at the computer. SHIT!!!

So what do you do when that panic sets in? Well the first thing you do is put away the to-do list for a moment and breathe. Sometimes we have to stop and breathe through our problems until our heart rate slows down and the anxiety is a little less. Next you turn to the people who are your support team. Now I have help on my editing. I still have stuff that I need to personally do but I do have help so that takes the anxiety down. It also means I can ask my mom if it’s possible to do a new read through on the first book. The answer is yes. It will be tight but not impossible. Okay, one thing comes off my list. The next is to see how I am going to do this author picture. I had plans on going through a professional photographer and have an appointment with one for the October 18 this month but will it be done in time for the article? I don’t think so. Well, call the best friend Mira and come up with a plan. That comes off the list. Okay not so bad. We can do the photo while my daughter is getting tutored by Bob. Good deal. When will I have time to find the images I need for my teasers plus the lines to go with them. Oh man! Here comes the anxiety again. Guess it’s time for some more deep breathing exercises. Okay, there will be some time available when you get back from tutoring and getting your picture taken. It will be okay. I have to remind myself that it will be okay. It feels like there is not enough hours in my day to get everything done but there is. For the next month, my family will have to give me a little bit of a pass on my time with them because I have a laundry list of things I have to get done. This means I need to have a conversation with them and explain what is happening right now. That conversation will help take some of that anxiety and panic but it won’t stop all of it.

I guess the question is, is there a way to stop all of the panic? I hate to say this but no there isn’t. You’re going to have a little bit of panic when you are getting close to your release date. All you can do is try and control some of the panic and ask for help. But here is the truth about the panic you feel; it has only a small part to do with the list that you still need to complete and more to do with what you are doing. It can be your first book or your tenth and you will still feel that anxiety because this something very personal that you are putting out into the world. Writing is a form of art, which makes it a part of your soul. You are literally taking a piece of you and putting it out for the world to see. Allowing people to read it and judge you. Now I am a person who cares very little what people think of me but this is different. This is me on paper and the idea someone will tear it to shreds is hard to think about but it is also what I signed up for. There will be some that will love what I do and others that will hate it. That’s okay. I have to remind myself that it’s okay if someone says something bad because others are going to love it. I write for me and that is something else I have to remind myself. I also have to tell myself no skipping my workouts. Those workouts are not just for my physical health but helps me manage the stress I feel. I can clear my mind and relax into my yoga or burn some of the aggression I feel while I do kickboxing or hike up a hill. Those workouts help to relieve some of my anxiety and stress.

It’s okay to have a little bit of panic, just don’t let it get out of hand. Talk to your support team. See if they can help with it. Breathe. It sounds crazy but deep breathing exercises help. Go for a walk or if you run, go for a run. Do some yoga or whatever form of exercises you like. It helps to clear your head and push down the panic. And remember if you miss one or even two things on your to do list, it’s okay. It does not mean you failed. Look at the what you have accomplished and stay positive. Learn for the areas where you missed the mark. Failures teach us more lessons than success does. Being an author is hard work. Whether anyone reads what you write or not, be proud of what you did. Don’t let the anxiety win or the negativity. Keep going because it is who you are at your core. Until next time!

Negativity

We have covered a number of topics in the last several weeks. This week’s topic has popped up in a number of different posts but I haven’t addressed it directly, until now. Negativity. It comes in many forms and many different directions. This week I want to talk about negativity from the outside world and from ourselves.

Negativity is everywhere and it can come from anywhere, home, work, etc. It can come from strangers you meet at events or in everyday life. When they find out you’re an author, they stop talking to you and look at you as if you are less than they are. They snub you because of the fact you create instead of doing what they feel you should be doing with your life. It can also come from another author. Someone who may have been doing this for a long time and has found some success and has forgotten where they started. Or maybe someone that is wanting to just get a reaction, be it negative or positive, out of anyone.

Negativity can come from loved ones who feel you are wasting your time or should be more “normal”. Some may even tell you that it’s a waste of time to be an author because you will never be the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. They look at you with pity as if you just don’t see what you really are. There is also our own negativity we dish out at ourselves.

I have experienced a number of these forms of negativity and in some ways it still shocks me. Most people find out I’m a writer and they are curious about what I write and what I do. They ask questions that I am happy to answer. For some they find out I am a writer and they look at me as if I am crazy. As if I’m a dreamer who will never make it and I need a hard reality check. What they don’t know about me is the struggles I have gone through to get to where I am today. They don’t see that I have worked many different jobs and raised two kids and been broke as a joke while doing it. Or the fact that I had to find myself after losing who I was in my family. These strangers hear “writer” and they think I have no clue what a hard days work looks like. There is a preconceived idea of what artists are. Most artists, whether it’s someone who is a writer, a painter, or a songwriter work day jobs while trying to improve their craft and make a name for themselves. They are striving for greatness just like so many others are at their regular paying jobs.

I have also experienced what it is to have an author who dishes out negativity. I have told all of you how wonderful the writing community is and they are but there are always one or two bad apples in the bunch. I have recently had two experiences from two separate writers. The first one was from someone who seemed to be a rather successful author. She friend requested me and I accepted seeing that she was an author. Then I began to read her posts. She posted multiple times to not send her invites to our author pages, bragged about the amount of money she was pulling in and some things that should never go on your page about your home life. The more I read of her posts, the more I saw what kind of person she was. She was negative type of person who didn’t really want to help other authors but wanted to jump up and down saying “Look at me! Look at me!” I have little patience for individuals like this and I quickly unfriended this individual.

Another experience I had was a little more personal. I was part of a writing group and a question was asked what made a book bad. Now in my opinion there are no bad books. Reading is a subjective thing. What I may enjoy reading another may not. I said that on the post and only a few agreed with me. Then someone brought up the book Twilight. Now I absolutely hate when anyone points at that series as says it's awful. For one, it got a generation of girls who were not reading to read. We as adults should be celebrating that they were reading, not trashing the books. Secondly, I have read the books and I didn’t think they were terrible. Were they Anne Rice style of writing, no. But they were enjoyable. Following this comment was a man who said all paranormal romance was about rape and that anyone who writes paranormal romance is just acting out on paper their rape fantasy. Now this was personal on many different levels. I am a paranormal romance author. I have no rape fantasy and how dare anyone degrade my writing in such a way or any other author who writes paranormal romance. It was offensive. The offense I took was the fact that someone would equate one genre to rape. I was a volunteer advocate for a rape crisis center. I have known more than one person who has been raped and I have my own experience in that area. So this angered me. Now the smart play would have been to just not to engage in any discussion with this individual. Unfortunately, I tend to be a bit of a reactionary when it comes to certain topics. This is one of them. I responded and so did another woman, who is a writer and we both reacted strongly. He responded and this led to an argument. It took several hours and two or three post to calm down enough to see this was what this guy was looking for. He wanted to poke a response from anyone and I gave him that. What I should have done was ignored him, instead of giving him what he wanted. He then played the victim and acted like we had attacked him because we misunderstood what he said. We didn’t, but he won because he got what he was looking for.

The last two forms are the most harmful of negativity. The negativity from our loved ones and from ourselves. The people who are supposed to be the most supportive can also be the most damaging to us. Outside of my mom and before I became a published author, I had a family who was not supportive of my dream to be a writer. I was told by all of them, I needed to be more normal when I was a kid. As a young adult when I said I wanted to be a writer I was told I was not special or good enough to be a writer. It was fine to dabble in it for now but I needed to find a nice normal career that I could support myself on. Being a writer was just wishful thinking. For a long time I believed that. I told myself I was to be a wife and a mother and nothing more. Dreaming was a waste of time because dreams didn’t come true. I ignored my needs and wants for years in order to take care of my family and be what thought I should be. I did this until I was so miserable I hated everything around me. It took a death in my family and everything I had ever known as my family to disintegrate for me to see how miserable I was. It took me another five years to find myself. What I found was it wasn’t just my loved ones selling me a bag of lies, it was me buying those lies for all of those years. I still have some negativity towards myself. I am my own worst critic. When I miss a goal or a deadline I have created for myself, I spend a couple days kicking myself for my failure. I recently finished the first edit of book four of The Hellborn Series. I have three books I am editing currently. One of them is on it’s final edit and getting ready for publication. And I am about to start book five’s research and outline. When I finished the first edit of book four I had no sense of accomplishment. Three days in a row last week, I didn’t meet my goal for pages to edit. I wasn’t content with the last chapter nor was I happy with the lack of intensity in a love scene. The night I finished the edit I spent the next three hours just kicking my own ass. I felt like I was failing not just myself but Savannah. I wasn’t doing her story justice as I had with the other books. I began to question why I had failed to deliver with this book. It was a good book but it was in some ways missing it’s mark. Was I losing my love for Savannah? Was working full time harming my craft? If it was, did that mean everyone who ever told me I couldn’t do it was right? I went to bed not feeling good or accomplished that night. At some point in the middle of the night, I started seeing what I was missing. The next morning while I worked out and showered I thought about all the problems I was feeling and seeing. It became clear what I needed to do. The first thing was re-edit that last chapter. I shouldn’t have pushed to finish the book the night before. I should have waited on the final chapter when I had fresh eyes to do the work. I didn’t and the consequences was me feeling like crap about what I had done. The next step was to go over my note cards for the edit. I had missed a few things I knew I needed to add. I went back and made those adjustments. I also re-edited the love scene and added more intensity to it.

So how do we stop the negativity? We can’t but we can limit what we allow in our lives. The people who look at you as if you are crazy for chasing this dream, ignore them. Shut them out and there judgement of how you are living your life. I recently read a quote that said “don’t take criticism from someone you would not take advice from.” It’s true. Those strangers who snub you, ignore them and hold your head up and move on. The same goes for other writers. Only connect yourself with people who are supportive of you and you can be of them. Unfriend that individual who makes you feel bad or not as good as them. Unfollow individuals who want to drag you down. This goes for loved ones as well. Just because you share DNA doesn’t mean you have to let those people into your life nor keep them in your life. Surround yourself with people who love and support you. And tell the rest to fuck off. For the personal negativity, remember you are human and you can’t always meet those goals. Remind yourself that you and your writing is a work in progress. Strive for the best version of yourself not perfection. Perfection is not possible because no one is perfect so no story will be perfect either. Also perfection is pretty damn boring. Until next time!

Goals and what they mean

This week I want to talk about goals and meeting them. Goals are important. The first part of this post is understanding what a goal is. A goal is an expectation you plan to meet by a certain time. You should have both long term and short term goals. As a writer, you can set a page goal or a word count goal. Maybe it’s a goal to have a book finished by a certain date. For me, I set a lot of different goals for my writing. I have a daily page goal for when I’m creating and one for when I’m editing.

When I’m drafting a new story, I have the goal of at least seven pages a day. I know it doesn’t sound like much, as a professional writer, seven pages should be easy. The problem is writing is not always a sure thing in terms of what you get done each day. There are days I write and the words flow like water. It’s exhilarating as pages and pages flow from my fingertips. You never want those days to end and when they are forced to, it angers you in some way because of how spectacular it felt as story flows out of you. There are other days those seven pages feel like I’m climbing up a steep hill with no traction. It’s exhausting and when you finish you feel like you’ve gone ten rounds in the ring with a heavyweight prize fighter. Seven pages is a reasonable goal in my eyes when I’m creating. For others they may have a higher goal than I do. They feel they should be able to complete twenty pages every time they sit down at the computer. Some authors do it based on word count. They will set it at five thousand words or maybe two thousand a day. Word counts for me matter little because I like to just write day in and day out. Any time I look at my word count it’s more for fun. Sometimes I’m shocked at how much I have to say. Other times it’s depressing because the words just didn’t flow because Savannah didn’t want to work that day. Other times it’s because I am unsure of a scene or the flow of the story as a whole.

When I’m editing forty pages is my goal. I feel it is a reasonable expectation for myself to get forty pages read and edited of my own work everyday. There is only one exception to this rule for me and that is when I need a break. I recently started a new job that is a full time position. The job is rewarding in terms of, I get to work with kids who have special needs. I get to see their excited faces when they count to six and recognize a number, but it’s exhausting. I also have a family that demands my attention. So Friday nights are reserved for my family. Which means I get only a dozen pages done if I’m lucky. This past Friday, I got sixteen pages and felt pretty good about it because I was exhausted from my week. I was tired enough that I almost fell asleep during my daughter’s karate lesson. I didn’t, but then I fell asleep during our movie night instead. So sixteen pages was a win in my book.

As a writer there are other goals as well. Perhaps selling a certain number of books by a specific date. You may want to join a writer’s association by a certain date. These are long term goals. I personally had a goal for book sales and to join a writer’s association. My goal with Bad Witch Walking was to sell ten books to people I didn’t know. Again this sounds crazy but it makes perfect sense for a first time author. As an Indie author we have to build our name from scratch. Most of us do not have anyone to handle our publicity or getting our name out to millions of people. We have to do it. Ten readers for a new author is the foundation of an empire. Those ten readers who enjoy that book will buy the next one and will tell others about it. As a reader myself, I can tell you I talk about books to other people. I will talk up a book I really enjoy. If I do it, I know other readers do so as well. Those original ten readers will talk to friends and family about a new book they enjoyed. Ten readers become twenty and so on. It’s a slow process but it does work. I’m sure the question you have is did I meet my goal? The answer is yes I did. I sold ten books to people I do not know. I also have given away a number of books as well, which is just as important as book sales. It’s another way to find readers, get reviews, and get your name out there.

My other long term goal is to join the Romance Writers Association by October. I am almost there in terms of the funds and hopefully I will be able to meet that goal. We will soon find out in the next couple of weeks.

So what do you do when you fail to meet a goal? Do you just give up on that goal? Do you kick your own ass for the failure? The answer is you may kick your own ass, that’s a personal choice. Just don’t spend too much time doing it. I have high expectations for myself, so I tend to kick myself when I fail to meet these expectations. Failing to meet a goal is difficult. I am disappointed by my failure whether it was in my control or not. So I spend a little time kicking myself and then reminding myself I won’t fail to meet the deadline again. The next step is I set a new time table for the goal. I don’t give up, I just push forward. A great example of this is when I was planning to launch Bad Witch Walking. My first goal was to do it by April of this year. As we went through the editing process, I found out it wasn’t in the cards. I still had loads of work to do on the book plus copy editing, building a Facebook page, and getting a cover for it. April wasn’t reasonable because I had no clue what I was doing. Now that I am more experienced, I am able to set a more attainable goal for Bad Karma’s release date. Originally, I had planned to do it in late December. It was a good fit doing it every six months. Turns out, I will be releasing it November 18th. The goal is set in stone and I have a Facebook release party already planned for the day along with a few events after.

The thing I have learned is that giving up is not an option. When you give up on a goal it means you’ve given up on yourself. That is not acceptable. The one person you should never give up on is you. Anything worth having takes time, patience, and hard work. There are going to be times you’re going to fail. It happens. Failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You learn from those failures. Failure teaches you how to fail gracefully. They teach you how to get back up and continue to push on. Failure is what makes us appreciate success. Building an empire is exhausting work but at the end it’s all worth it. The payoff is success and the feeling of accomplishment, which in my eyes is a success. Every goal you meet however big or small is a success. Every time you fail, getting back up and trying again is a success. Success is defined by you and your determination, no one else. Until next time!

Fear of Success

Fear is our topic this week. The reason I have chosen this topic is because I’ve recently started to face a lot of my fears. When I say fear most people think fear of spiders or maybe a creature from a movie. The fear I am talking about is entirely different; it is a gut wrenching, paralyzing you where you stand type of fear. For me, I have a fear of success. For some it’s the fear of failure.

I know you are probably wondering how could someone have the fear of success. Isn’t success what we all are striving for? The answer is yes. We are all striving for success but sometimes the idea that we could actually succeeds scares us. I am one of those people. I have failed more times than I can count. I am comfortable with failure. In the past, when I failed, I looked at it as inevitable. You maybe asking why? The answer is simple yet complicated. Until the last year of my life I have not had much confidence in myself. Maybe it was the fact that I was always so different than other kids. Maybe it was because I have heard most of my life that I need to be more normal. Whatever the reason I had very little confidence in me and so I learned to hide. I’m the person that can be in a room full of people and noone noticed me because I can hide myself away. For years, I denied myself my true passion for writing. Yes, I would write but it would be sporadic and something I never told anyone about. I would dream about being a writer. I would read interviews from writers I love and my first thought was, I wish I could do that. I didn’t chase the dream because I had the expectation that I would fail. The idea of success never crossed my mind as a possibility.

So what changed for me? That’s where the complicated part comes in. What changed was, I moved to a new state where I knew only two other people outside of my immediate family. I had no side jobs, nothing outside of my kids, and realization hit that I had wasted away my time doing very little with my life. I wanted to be me. I wanted to show my kids that there was more to life than just being a mom. I started writing again but only when my kids were in school. At the time my son was in preschool two days a week. I believed I needed to focus all my time and energy on my kids and husband. If I was going to start writing again, I would do it in my free time and not when I should be spending time with my kids. The problem with this theory is that writing is not a sometimes thing. You have to be dedicated to your craft. It took me months to realize it and yet I continued to do the same thing. I was self-sabotaging by not dedicating my time to what I really wanted. The reason was not what I told myself it was. The reason had more to do with what if I did succeed? What if I started writing and published and people actually liked what I created? What do I do then? That created a panic in me. Failure I was good at, success not so much. What do you do with success?

I ignored my desire to write more than I was currently doing and to work towards a goal for months. Then something happened. See my mom has always said we meet or read things for a reason. Life or maybe it’s fate drops events or people in front of us when we need it. I have never believed this myself until very recently. The writing program on my computer crashed and erased most of what I had written. It had kept some of the work I did but not most of it. Talk about panic. I panicked and began to question if this was a sign I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I was setting myself up just for life to show me I needed to just be a mom. I made a deal with myself, I would rewrite everything and if it happened again I would stop and never write again. I had a printed copy of the first five chapters of Bad Witch Walking and I began to rewrite everything using a different program. What I discovered was the writing I was doing was okay but my story was missing a lot of things. The first being more of me. I made the decision to write a couple hours a day. I would fix the problems in the story. My son is good at playing by himself and I could take that time after my daughter went to school to do two hours of writing.

At some point two hours became four and then I was writing all the time. About six months later my mom came to visit me for the first time and I started talking to her about publishing. I still thought it was a pipe dream but she didn’t. She offered to help edit what I was writing. I believe when we started editing was when everything began really shifting for me. I started finding confidence in my writing and thinking maybe success was a possibility. There was still a voice of doubt but it was quieter than it had ever been. As I was editing on the weekends with my mom, I started writing Bad Karma and a plan began to take shape not just for the books, but for me. See when Savannah came to me I had a very low opinion of myself. The more I worked with her and built her story the more I saw I was worthy of something. The fear of success had a lot to do with that little voice in my head saying I don’t deserve success. What I learned from Savannah was I did deserve to succeed. I deserved to chase my dreams. I deserved to be seen and heard.

The revelation I had through Savannah caused me to look at other areas of my life. What I was teaching my kids? What I was doing to my body as a way to ensure no one looked at me? I started to make changes. The first was with my eating habits. I needed to make better and smarter choices. I had developed some issues with my gallbladder and it was the lack of care I had for myself. So I started cutting out things, giving up sugar, soda, and fried foods. Then I made it a priority to workout daily. Slowly my body began to make the shift I wanted, just as my mind was. Writing became a full-time act that I discovered that I loved. In this crazy journey of self discovery, I began to meet my fears head on. I lost twenty nine inches, I published a book, I am learning to mountain bike and discovered I love to hike. I love working out. I love that push I give myself when I think I can’t go another mile or I can’t do another rep and I do. There is nothing like the accomplished feeling you get from it. I discovered I really liked me. I am different from all the other moms and most people and I like that I am. I am smart, talented and not to brag too much but look damn good. I am even meeting my fear of going back to work and start my new job this morning. The next stage of my life is going to be a challenge but anything that is worth having should be hard because when you find that success you feel the accomplishment to your soul.

I was talking with my friend, Barry, recently. Barry and I have known each other for almost twenty years and he has witnessed all of my ups and downs. He is also one of the most creative and uplifting people I know. I was talking about how scared I was about the next stage in my life. The fear I have been feeling for the past two or three weeks have been almost paralyzing. It has made me question if I am making the right decisions for my future. When I told him this, his response was simple, “The best decisions are always the scariest ones we make”. He then followed up with I was going to be fine. Those words helped shut down the self-doubt, a little bit more. It helped me not go back to the girl who pretended to not exist. Do I still have self-doubt? Yes. Do I still fear success? Yes, but it no longer paralyzes me. The fear is a softer voice in my head that I tell on a regular basis to shut the hell up. When it gets to loud, I call one of my friends or my mom or my kids will say something that reminds me that I am not the person I used to be.

The change in me has also changed them. My daughter is not a risk taker. She is unsure of things she doesn’t know how to do. She tries to blend in so no one notices her. A month ago, she took the leap and started karate. Yesterday in a room with at least thirty people she did not know, she got her yellow belt. She was terrified to do the test but she faced the fear and kicked some ass. I couldn’t have been prouder of her. My son is not shy or worried about things that scare him but he is making changes by making healthier choices without me pushing him. He is wanting to climb more and play more instead of watching TV. This in my book is a win.

So face those fears. Don’t let them stop you from being you. Tell those voices that say you can’t do it to shut the hell up. Be you, do you. Until next time!

Balancing Life

Today my friends I want to talk about balance. As a writer, we walk a tightrope everyday. Whether it’s balance in what we do with our writing, bouncing from one project to the next or balancing a full time job and writing, or balancing writing and family. This is a difficult challenge we all face. Writing for most of us does not pay the bills as much as we wish it did. It means most of us are working a 9 to 5 job and writing when we are not working. Many of us also have families on top of that. So how do we do it?

The answer is we burn both ends of the candle. We get up early and we go to bed late, day in and day out. We are on our phones all the time, as we are trying to do too many things at once. Checking Facebook, Instagram, and other social media pages.

For me, I am in the process of going back to a 9 to 5. Going back to a full-time job is not what I want to do but it has become a necessity, as my life has begun to take a new turn I had not foreseen. I have been a stay at home mom, who has always picked up side jobs like dog walking, pet sitting or even cleaning offices on the weekends. I have been able to dedicate my time to Savannah and my family. With the shift in my schedule, I am now having to get up at four thirty every morning just to get my daily workout in. I get up, workout, eat, handle my social media, and then hop on the computer for a little while as I yell like a banshee at my kids to get moving. Once I start working, I will still have to get up at four thirty to do my workout and social media but it will be getting my kids to school, then work, come home and handle homework, karate, dinner, and the kids while I handle any social media I may have missed and then do some writing. Eventually at some point in the evening I will fall into bed just to do it again the next day. Currently I drop the kids off at school and come home to work with Savannah. I try to have everything in terms of writing done for the day by the time they come home from school. So what job am I left to do? Social media. I am on social media all the time either doing a takeover, posting, or participating in a take over as a reader. Most of the time I am on and off my phone for several hours as I try to spend some quality time with my kids.

The weekends are no better. I take part in live reads, live Q&As with authors and still post and try to market myself, as much as possible. I’m also do editing with my mom on the weekends. At some point, I try to squeeze in some fun with the kids but most of the time I am so exhausted that it’s hard for me to even function. So how do I balance everything? Well I won’t lie, some days I fail at the task. For example, this summer I worked every day writing while my kids ran around our place playing. I tried working only half-day on Fridays. That worked only half the time. I would have to run errands on Friday’s, which meant I didn’t start until eleven or twelve. We had a few visitors over the summer, which required me driving an hour and a half each way to pick people up at the airport. So that was time lost as well. There were a few weeks I am pretty sure I failed to spend quality time with my kids, which made me angry at myself and feeling like I was failing.
The solution I found in the chaos, that is known as my life, is I did small things. During the summer, my kids and I would go for walks twice a week. It was only thirty minutes and they complained a lot but it accomplished two tasks at once. The first, I got one of my workouts in. I am all about being healthy and I am trying to teach my kids how to be healthy, so we got to spend time together while we exercised. Maybe not the things they liked but it was quality time. Most of our walks were just me walking and the kids racing and asking why we had to do this. There was one morning that my son ran ahead of us and stomped his foot and kept running. At the time, I had no clue why he stomped his foot. Little did I know there was a small snake on the path we were walking on. For the record, it was not a poisonous snake and it was very small. I am positive he thought it was a toy and as boy, they like to stomp on things. As my daughter and I approached I leaned down, seeing something in the pathway. It took my brain a moment to register it was a snake and it was very real. I reached for my daughter to prevent her from stepping on it. At that same moment she looked down and screamed like the girl she is. At this point, my son had stopped in his tracks. My daughter darted towards him, and he started to cry because his sister had scared him. I started to laugh. I am not a fan of snakes but this entire situation was hilarious and the only thing I could do was laugh. Then, I started making jokes about the entire thing, which made both laugh. Sorry, I got off topic with that story but I had to share.

The second thing I have begun to do, is on Friday nights the kids and I camp out in our living room for movie nights. My daughter usually has karate those nights, so we go to her class and head home. We pick out two movies, an action and a romcom. My daughter is eleven and has discovered she loves them. I am more of an action or drama kind of girl but it makes her happy. We watch movies, the kids eat junk food, while I drink water until late into the night. My son is usually the first to fall asleep. As of late, my daughter wants to talk before we go to sleep. Once they are both down, I fall asleep in the chair. It's the balance I have found with my kids. It gives me a break from social media, writing, and the stresses that fill my life.

You have to take those breaks because they’re important. I love writing and I want to do nothing but write and be with my kids. The problem is even those things I want to do can become a bit too much for my brain and my brain needs to shut down from time to time. My alone time is usually me staying up too late and reading or watching the little TV, I actually watch. Most of the time it’s me watching something I have seen a hundred times. Recently, I have taken to watching an episode or two of Golden Girls or Dallas. On other nights I switch to Grey’s Anatomy, The Closer, or True Blood. I watch only one or two episodes and then go to bed. It gives my brain time to relax enough to sleep.

You have to have down time, it is required. You have to walk away for an hour or even a few hours, when you think of the laundry list of things you still have to get done. If you don’t stop, you will burn out and that means you not only lose your drive and love for what you are doing but also lose a piece of you. I have said it before, everything we write is a piece of our soul. So take the break you need. Its okay to say I need an hour or three. Trust me the world will not come crashing down and it will not stop you from building the empire you are building. It just means you need a moment for you. I am learning self care is important because it’s how you show yourself you care about you.

And for all of you who are not writers who may be reading this. A way you can help we writers, is not just buying our books but leaving a review as well. Reviews are how we get other readers to buy our books. So help us out in that way. If you know an author, help them by forcing them to take that much needed break because trust me when I say they aren’t doing it themselves. By the way, this advice is for not just writers but for those of you trying to balance your lives. Also, for this writer a nice bottle of vodka and conversation, maybe a Keto friendly cheesecake is a nice break too. Until next time!

Support Team

We as writers are made of magic. I believe that fully. We create worlds for us to live in and with a little hope and prayer, share it with others so they may live in our worlds as well. I for one as a reader, appreciate all of the work authors do to create a world I can escape into. I always feel every book I read becomes a piece of me. I get to live a thousand different lives and love every minute of it. As an author, I get to live in two worlds at the same time all the time. I get to live in the real world, which I may not enjoy all of the time, with my family. And I get to live in a world with Savannah and her people in a city called Sweetclover. I am always in both worlds, no matter the time of day or night. Savannah is always speaking to me and compelling me to write. To me it’s magic and it’s the very best kind. I am more me when I am sitting in front of my computer working with Savannah and the rest of her family. So what more do you need in life? The answer to that is support. Even being made of magic, self doubt is there and sometimes hard to beat back.

We have talked about building a community. This is part of the reason you have to have a community. For me I have two communities, I have my author friends who are amazing, and I have my support team or my family. My mom is the first part of my support team. She is the person I call first when I am doubting a scene I wrote or I need to talk through a part of the plot I am having a hard time seeing. Now some will say never ever share anything with anyone. I disagree with that to a point. You should only have one or two people you can trust completely, who will be honest with you and who support you. If they can’t be either of those things they are not part of that support team. My mom also works as my editor. She is brutally honest and is an avid reader. When I say avid, she reads three to four books a week and she reads from multiple genres. To her anything less than three hundred pages is not worth her time. She reads all of those books plus my stuff. She and I spend hours on the phone reading and editing every word I write. There are times we agree on changes that need to be made and then there are times we argue on word usage or about details. She also likes to make fun of me when I make funny typos or certain phrases that I like to use. When we first started we argued for ten minutes on is it better to use pajamas or night clothes. I still say night clothes for the record. Sorry Mom.

In my opinion, this is a good thing. I need the push back and someone who will say this scene sucks. Or when I say this all sucks I need to delete this entire chapter and start again, someone to stop me and says it just needs work. She does that for me. She lives so deep in my other world that she has been known to call me and say I’ve been thinking about this for a few days you need to work on this. An example of this is the book we are currently working on Bad Karma. Bad Karma is the second book in The Hellborn Series. I love Bad Karma, the writing is good, the plot is there, but I had been feeling as if something was off. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me. It’s part of the reason I haven’t picked a release date yet. About two weeks ago I got a call in the middle of the week from my mom. She had found the answer to what I was missing. The story touches on some sensitive areas, some I have experienced personally, because of my discomfort I have held back. At first I thought she was crazy. I poured over this book and dug deep. Then I stepped back and thought about it. She was right, I had held back in certain areas. So the book will go through one more revision so I can dig a little deeper.

The next person I turn to is my best friend. I have known since I was fourteen. Mira and I in a lot of ways come from two very different upbringings. But we have similar viewpoints about life and our sense of humor can very much be the same. For the record Meri has “Mira” moments throughout the series. Mostly the banter between she and Savannah is very much how Mira and I can be with one another. We pick on each other from time to time and at other moments we pick on others, usually her husband. She is the person I talk with about other aspects of being a writer. I tell her about scenes, yes, but I tend to talk about the business side of things with her. For example when I made the decision to publish, she was the one who convinced me I needed to take an author picture. Now I hate taking pictures of myself. I hate it with a passion. The idea of putting my face on the book was a terrible idea in my opinion. She pushed me for three weeks to do it. Would not let up about it. She even got her husband Bob to join in on this discussion. I kept saying no and she kept pushing. I finally gave in and took the damn picture. Now I don’t mind the picture but in hindsight I should have waited. Since that picture was taken I have lost over twenty inches, so now I have to do it again. I talk to her about the idea of doing an audiobook, which I am still contemplating. She likes the idea and believes between she, Bob, and I we can do it. I think she’s crazy but am really starting to think it is possible. What can I say, she sucks me into her craziness. She is also the one I turn to when I need help with car information. I know little about cars, Mira on the other hand knows far more than me. When Santiago and I were shopping for his car she dragged Bob into the discussion and that was how we got to the Porsche. Mira and I then took a field trip and got to sit inside a Panamera worth $118,000 and started it. The entire time Santiago was almost purring inside of my head at the feel and sound of the car. I wish Mira and I had driven the car.

When Bob gets dragged into our craziness about my writing he starts to think of ways to improve my layouts and sometimes marketing. I also think he likes that he gets to help me pick out cars for everyone. Bob and I have similar brains in terms that they are always working on ten different things at once. The difference between his brain and mine. I am thinking about the story part of it while he is thinking about making it look better. He and I will be working on something new in terms of design on the pages very soon.

The last of my support team are my kids. I have an eleven year old and a six year old. I also have two adult daughters that I adopted as my own. One who lived across the street from my mom. Jasmine became one of my kids when she was a teenager and I love her as much as I love the two kids I gave birth to. The other is Mari. I met her when she was going through a rough time in her life. I reached out to help her and then told her, she was now one of my kids. I do that I adopt kids that may not have the best parental situation or home life. I don’t legally adopt them but they call me mom and always know I have a place for them when they need it. All of them are a different kind of support. They are the ones that get me away from the computer or encourage me to keep going. Part of the reason being a writer is so important is because how can I tell them to dream big or follow their dreams if I don’t do the same. Taking the leap to publish was scary. When I hit the button and submitted Bad Witch Walking I thought I was going to be sick right there on my couch. My eleven year old came out of her room and asked what I was doing. I told I had just submitted Bad Witch Walking and you know what she did she smiled hugged me, and said “good job mom”. She ran back to her room and told her brother, who as a six year old, who was like “Okay, cool” and went back to building his Legos. Just remember as much as your kids can make you feel good, they keep you humble as well.

These people who are my support team are the ones who never question if I can do this. They are the ones who remind me that I can. They are the ones that tell me I got this and to keep going. They are the ones who make me laugh when I need it and the ones to give me a swift kick in the ass too. If it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I would have kept going. You will have naysayers, trust me, some of the people who should give you the most support are the first ones to say no or this is crazy or you need to just be what you are. Those are not your support team those people are your motivation. Let them doubt you and your ability, while you keep pushing forward. You may fall but remember you are not alone. Get up brush yourself off and keep going. Push through the self doubt because otherwise you are left dreaming and not actually fighting for those dreams. Anything worth having should require hard work. Until next time!

Social Media Anxiety

Last week I spoke about building a community. This week it's all about social media and the stuff we must do. It is one of the most difficult parts of this for me. I know some find it easy, maybe even a little fun. Writing is a difficult task all on its own. We sit at our computers and fill empty pages with the worlds we create. You would think it would be enough. Creating takes our blood, sweat, and tears...and a bit of our souls. Every piece, we as writers create is a piece of our soul we are baring to the readers.

With that said our writing should be enough to get readers attention. Right? In a perfect world, yes. In the real world we as authors, whether you are an indie author or an author who goes through a publisher, live on social media in order to gain readers and name recognition. Prior to publishing I went on social media to kill time, follow politics, or to see what was happening in the world. When I started learning about how to market myself anxiety set in when I found out how much time I would have to spend on social media. My work day is anywhere from twelve to sixteen hours a day, and that is not counting the time I spend being a mom. This time is spent between writing and on social media interacting with others. I have never been someone who interacts easily with others. I feel awkward and a lot of times out of place. There are times I have no clue what to say and I have a tendency to miss my chance to speak because I’m thinking so hard about what I can add to the conversation. Social media should be easier because it’s not face to face. But it is just as difficult as face to face interaction is for me. I worry that someone will not get my joke or I will say the wrong thing. I think through everything I want to say before I even start typing. I then reread at least twice before I post to try to prevent any typos and to make sure I make sense in what I’m trying to say. The sad part is I still miss typos, which then results in me kicking my own ass for missing typos. Having to be on social media all the time and interacting with writer pages, book groups, and just other people in general, it has caused more than a little anxiety or at least it was until recently.

I have been been doing this now for three months. Over the last few weeks, I feel like I am finally getting the hang of it and having more fun with it. Maybe I’m being delusional but I am becoming more comfortable commenting on posts and making posts on my personal page and my author page as well. This is happening for two reasons. The first was something one of my favorite authors J.R. Ward said on a post to writers. (For the record her word is gospel to me when she talks about writing.) If you have never read any of her posts to writers I recommend you do. Now back to what I was saying. She said just be who you are. When you are interacting with people whether on social media or in person just be you. At the time this seemed crazy to me because come on I have heard my entire life how I need to be more normal. So how could being me be a good thing. Somehow that piece of advice sunk in my thick skull.

The second thing that happened, is I am becoming more comfortable and confident as a writer. There are moments where I am having less self doubt about what I’m saying. I am still thinking about what I say before I say it but it’s less stressful than it has been in the past. I don’t fret as much about how others will see me or think of me. I’ll give you an example. This week I found out an author who I will not name called romance writers prostitutes. Now, I think this whole thing is quite funny. This author goes on to say that writing romance is easy where comedy is so much harder. I wanted to be offended or angry but the entire thing was so ridiculous that I could do nothing but laugh at this post. My first thought after the laughter was well I write paranormal romance what does that make me? Am I a special type of prostitute because I write paranormal romance or am I just ordinary? My next thought was I need to post these questions with the screenshot of what the author, who shall not be named, said. I know I’m sounding a little like Harry Potter with that last one but stay with me. Now normally these are thoughts I only share with my best friend and my mom. They get my sense of humor but I thought why not. So I did. The response I got was hilarious. The answer to my question was that I was special. One of my artist friends on Instagram actually told me I was very special. My response was WOOHOO! I would hate to be ordinary. One follower even gave me my own genre nickname of parawhoremal romance. Which for the record I laughed at, probably harder than I should have. But what can I say it was funny.

My next and last thought was all writing is hard. To say that one genre is better than another is ludicrous to me. In my stories I always have humor somewhere in them. Savannah can be going through the worst possible situation and there is always some laughter at some point. Meri and Savannah always find a way to loosen things up with one another. Sometimes it's them picking on one another. Their banter cracks me up. When Savannah and Meri start in my head it’s some of the easiest writing I do. The problem comes when I have to stop and laugh for a moment before I can finish what they are saying to one another. Maybe the author, who shall not be named, finds writing comedy hard. I find all writing hard at some point or another. But I have digressed a bit, back to social media.

So how do you interact on social media or even outside of social media as an author? Be yourself! Be who you are with no apologies and embrace you. You will not be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. The ones that find you hilarious and brilliant are the ones you want to interact with. The ones that are curious about you, should be who you try to talk to because you never know who you will meet. As my mother says just be you. Until next time!

The Trials and Tribulations of Being a New Indie Author

Hi my name is Sammantha and I am an indie author. Okay, well let me back up and say I am brand new to being an author and I am still learning as I go. The idea for this blog came from the fear of success and everything I still need to learn about what I’m doing learning I have been doing. There is so much information out there about being an indie author and the do’s and don’t it can become a bit overwhelming. So I decided why not write about my journey. Why not start a blog about the trials and tribulations of being an indie author.? Maybe it will help someone who is wanting to jump into being an indie author. Maybe readers will find it interesting. Or maybe no one will find any of this interesting or informative at all and I am just writing this for myself. Either way I am going to take the leap and hopefully someone out there will enjoy this. So let’s dive in.
It was a little bit daunting when I made the decision to publish. Of course there were a few people who said I was crazy or rolled their eyes at me when I said I was going to take the plunge. I am thirty-six a mother of two and I was going to start a writing career because I had always wanted to be a published author. I could see why they rolled their eyes at me. A few years ago I would not have to for the simple fact that I didn’t believe I could do it. There were also a few who were on board with the idea and still are cheering me on to this day. At first the scariest part of this decision was the fact take out for the fact people were going to read the stories that are in my head. Who knew if anyone would want to read them or not. As I started to write, I began to do research on how to become an indie author. What I read soon became the scariest bit of this journey. Putting the book out for the world to see was simple. There was so much more to it than writing a book. I read articles on marketing, finding readers, building websites, creating blogs. You name it I read it. There were a few things they all agreed on.add what the article agreed about For this blog post we are going to talk about building a community because that is vital to all you do as an author.
You have to build a community of not just readers but authors as well. How did you do that? Come to find out it was easy enough. You put yourself out there by introducing yourself to other authors and book groups. You let them get to know you. And I’m not just talking about as an author either. Let them get to know you as a reader and as a person. The more you interact with this community the more you find how similar we all are. As they get to know you, your community starts to grow almost instantly. Add about interacting on Facebook and Instagram
The writing community is made up of amazing people who are accepting of new authors. They are always willing to help out and answer questions, which for me was a great thing. Doing social media takeovers, live reads, helping to promote others is a key factor in all of this. I will admit I made mistakes when it came to doing this. I waited until the last minute to start building my network of people. I should have started months before. Part of the reason I waited was because I didn’t know any better. The other part was fear. My first author friend is also a cover artist and when I started to learn about her I learned she had been doing this for sixteen years. How was I going to make friends with her? I felt like a fraud for just liking her cover art page. As soon as she sent me a friend request I panicked a bit. She would soon find out I had no clue what I was doing and know I was a fraud. The feeling didn’t change at first as I began to meet more authors through social media. I was just releasing my first book why would any author who has been doing this for years want to help me or even befriend me? Then I realized something, they had been where I was which meant they knew how I felt. What I learned as I gained friends within the writing world were they were like me. They had a dream they wanted to make happen and they work everyday to do it. They also knew what it’s like to not know what the hell they’re doing. They want me to succeed just as they have. We help each other because we are in this together.
One of the greatest things I have discovered is that most of them have a dark sense of humor like I do. I have spent most of my life being an outsider. I wasn’t like the other kids I found it hilarious when another kid fell or got hit with a ball. I was the kid that could play by myself because I always had a story in my head I wanted to act and did. As an adult I have always been different too. During a crisis I’m good at handling the situation. Once it’s done I find some dark jokes to make and laugh about it. I use humor to survive some of the most difficult moments of my life. The more I get to know this community the more I realize it has taken me years to find my people but I have. As time goes by I feel like less of a fraud and more like one of them. No I haven’t met any of them in person, all of our chats have been through email, social media, or private messenger but that doesn’t matter because they have my back as I have theirs.
Take the leap, find some authors to befriend because I promise you will never be bored. Until next time!